Kochi: Petrol bunks across the state will stop accepting debit cards and credit cards for filling fuel from midnight on Sunday as banks will now debit a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) of 1 per cent from petroleum dealers.
“Credit/debit cards won’t be accepted in petrol pumps from Monday to protest the move by the banks to charge dealers one per cent Merchant Discount Rate and also deducting additional tax. The pumps which function for meagre commission can’t meet this,” Thomas Vaidyan, president, All Kerala Federation of Petroleum Traders.
R. Sabarinath from the Kerala State Petroleum Traders Association said the finance ministry had indicated its difficulty to change the software which deducts MDR across all merchant outlets, specifically for petroleum outlets. “The next option is to reimburse the money collected by banks to dealers. We are meeting the FM in this regard on Monday,” he said.
