The Ministry of Communications has published for public hearing a bill to ban telecom companies from charging fees for paying bills through standing bank orders.
Currently, companies charge customers who pay their bills through a bank rather than a credit card a standing order fee, which can be as high as 50 shekels, and some also charge a monthly fee of up to 13 shekels.
In fact, we are talking about increasing the cost of services for the weakest segments of the population who do not have a credit card (about 10% of clients of communication companies). An audit by the Ministry of Communications found that the companies’ income from commissions, minus operating expenses associated with standing orders, amounted to several tens of millions of shekels a year.
The law provides for the possibility of communication companies switching to prepayment, when communication fees are charged through a standing order a month in advance, rather than a month in advance.