Bank-charge probe to restart

Johannesburg - Fact-finding hearings into whether bank charges and access to the national payment system thwart effective competition for consumers resume on Monday at the Competition Commission Offices in Pretoria.

The enquiry panel will also sit on Tuesday, June 19 and on the July 9.

The Competition Commission instigated the enquiry in response to growing public and governmental disquiet stemming from an independent report it commissioned earlier, The National Payment System and Competition in the Banking Sector.

The report identified competition concerns around access to the NPS; the hearings are an attempt to gather sufficient information to determine whether the Competition Act has been contravened in any way.

Earlier, in 2004, the task group for the National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank recommended that the Competition Commission investigate the possibility of a 'complex monopoly' in the governance and operation of the national payments system.

The Commission has also received several complaints directly or indirectly concerned with the payment system and is examining inter-bank arrangements in this concentrated sector.

When the hearings commenced in April, the Commission said the main concerns the report identified were around access to the payment system by would-be service providers (banks and non-banks) and charges levied by banks for payment transactions. Further, complexity and a lack of transparency could limit access to competitive banking services for South African consumers (be they businesses or individuals).

The enquiry has been probing:

• the level and structure of charges made by banks and other providers of payment services;
• the relation between the costs of providing retail banking and/or payment services;
• the charges for such services;
• the process by which charges are set; and
• the level and scope of existing and potential competition in this regard;
• the feasibility of improving access by non-banks and would-be banks to the national payment system infrastructure, so that they can compete more effectively in providing payment services to consumers;
• any other aspect relating to the payment system or the above-mentioned charges which could be regarded as anti-competitive.

Hearings have covered ATM charges, payment cards and related charges.

Next week, the enquiry panel is likely to focus penalty fees charged to consumers.