The government is pushing local companies to use the internet for the reselling of services and goods. In Malta, only Bank of Valletta and HSBC Malta are offering e-commerce and card clearing services.
Bank of Valletta has recently updated its e-commerce policy:
* a monthly cap is introduced meaning that every transaction over
the monthly cap will be blocked for 120 days
* a retention of at least 20% of the transaction amount for a period
of 120 days is introduced.
These conditions are tough burdens for every e-commerce merchant as a non negligible amount of their turnover will be block for a very long period. This is clearly going against the effort of the government.
It has to be mentioned that neither Bank of Valletta or HSBC are clearing the debit cards of their competitor, thus creating a disadvantage for both the merchants and the consumer.
Alternattiva Demokratika is urging the two major banks to revise their e-commerce policy and to get inline with SEPA regulations as fast as possible.
