Bank charges on transfers to be scrapped in January

The Bank of Portugal expects that from January next year banks will no longer be charging customers for bank transfers.

It has to do with a new EU regulation that will come into force on 9 January, 2025, making it mandatory that immediate transfers should have the same cost as 24-hour credit transfers.

Given that most banks currently do not charge for credit transfers, the expectation is that banks will broaden free transfers for any type of transfer.

“The European Commission and European Central Bank understand as we do (Bank of Portugal) that our credit transfers need to evolve to cover immediate transfers”, said Hélder Rosalino to the business daily Negócios.

“You shouldn’t be able to discriminate against immediate transfers by charging more for these than credit transfers”, particularly given that people can make transfers with their mobile phones.

From today (24 June) the SPIN system will come on line and be mandatory from 16 September. This will enable payment service users to begin making both 24-hour credit and immediate transfers using a mobile phone number or company identification number (NIPC) without even needing an IBAN.

The new system will cost the Bank of Portugal €614,000 and will work alongside another system called Beneficiary Confirmation which has been available since May and has already been used in 11 million transfers.

By using a mobile phone number or IBAN the system recognises the name of the person to whom the transfer is being made.

Moreover, Portugal’s banks are preparing for transfers to be made by using a mobile phones alone, giving an advantage over using Multibanco machines to make transfers to own accounts or the accounts of third parties.

BPI clients will from today use the new SPIN system while Santander will start using it from 8 July and CGD after the 14 July.