The Bank of Israel has announced that it will allow mobile financial payment apps bit and PayBox to charge fees, but subject to a number of restrictions.
The bit application is owned by Hapoalim Bank, PayBox is owned by Discount Bank. These apps are very popular and have a huge number of users, but because the apps don’t charge for their services, banks are losing money.
Because it is not profitable to support payment applications without transfer fees, Bank Leumi does not participate in providing such services at all, and Isracard, which tried to organize such a payment application, soon stopped these attempts, ICE.co.il notes.
As a result, the market was divided between the two above-mentioned applications, with Hapoalim and Discount banks financing them at a loss. Since banks do not like to lose money, the Bank of Israel rightly fears that one of the mobile payment application operators will soon leave, and competition will disappear, or both applications will close, closing such a service for Israeli users.
Based on this, the Bank of Israel allowed the PayBox and bit applications to charge commissions to users whose transfer turnover using the application exceeds 25,000 shekels per year. Today, most users do not reach this threshold, so they will continue to use the application services for free.