Petrol pumps to stop accepting card payments from tomorrow

With 4 major banks deciding to charge for these from today, dealers say they have no other choice

Following a decision by four banks to levy a charge for every sale on a credit or debit card, two petroleum dealer associations have decided not to accept any card transactions at fuel retail outlets from Monday.

The decision covers a majority of the 56,000 outlets in the country. The four banks are HDFC, Axis, ICICI and Punjab National Bank.

"We have been informed by these four banks that we will be charged one% on all credit card transactions and between 0.25% and one% on all debit card transactions from January 9. Reports suggest even State Bank of India is planning to charge the same. We feel banks are using this as an excuse to improve their bottom line through transactions at fuel stations. Hence, we have decided not to accept any card transactions from Monday," A D Sathyanarayan, president of the Consortium of India Petroleum Dealers, told this newspaper.

The association claims to have about 25,000 motor fuel outlets as members. Later, the All India Petroleum Dealers' Association stated likewise. Its members’ margins, it said, were fixed on a per kilolitre (kl) basis and there was no scope to absorb the new charges.

Dealers say a 1% charge would mean 30% of the gross dealer margin on petrol and 40% on diesel. "Our margins will be wiped out if we accept this. We have specific mechanisms to compute the margin and these do not have any scope for credit card merchant discount rates," Sathyanarayan added.  

As of last March, there were 56,190 fuel retail outlets. Of these, those of the three government-owned majors — Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation — added to 52,604 retail outlets. The private sector ones are Shell, Reliance and Essar Oil. The monthly consumption  of each outlet averages to 170 kl.

"This decision is only for those banks that have levied this charge. Dealers in our association using POS (point-of-sale) machines of other banks can accept card payments," said Ajay Bansal, president of the All India Petroleum Dealers' Association.

For this charge, the banks have quoted a Reserve Bank of India circular of December 16. "That circular nor any other have any reference to credit card charges or for not passing the same to customers. The government is telling us that oil marketing companies (OMCs) will reimburse us later for the losses we suffer on these charges," Sathyanarayan said. 

Last month, the government had announced a 0.75% discount on purchase of motor fuel at these outlets through cards. However, dealers claim many of them are yet to get any reimbursement on this discount from the OMCs. 

In 2015-16, overall fuel demand zoomed to 183.5 million tonnes, from 165.5 mt in 2014-15.  Diesel consumption increased by 7.5% to 74.6 mt and of petrol by 14.5% to 21.8 mt.