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2014-01-01

Circular No. 54 Amendment of Credit Inquiry Fees

The Palestine Monetary Authority issued Circular No. 54/2014 to amend the pricing policy for credit inquiry fees charged to banks for successful inquiries. The revised policy imposes a $2 fee per successful inquiry up to a monthly cap of 2,000 operations per bank, charges $1.50 for any inquiries exceeding that cap, and applies a $700 monthly subscription fee to banks falling below the new minimum threshold of 466 successful inquiries. The circular explicitly prohibits banks from passing these fees to customers or guarantors, grants fee exemptions for inquiries yielding no credit data, and mandates implementation starting June 1, 2014.

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Palestine Monetary Authority

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Palestine Monetary Authority

PALESTINE MONETARY AUTHORITY

Circular No. (54/2014)

To all banks operating in Palestine
Date: Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Subject: Amendment of Credit Inquiry Fees

Further to our Circular No. (102/2010) dated 19/10/2010 concerning the fees collected for inquiry operations conducted by banks, and in implementation of the Palestine Monetary Authority's policy aimed at continuously developing credit operation systems in line with global developments, and based on the Board of Directors' decision No. (127/11) dated 25/3/2014, we hereby inform you that the pricing policy for credit inquiry fees applied to banks for successful inquiry operations has been amended to be as follows:

  1. A fee of $2 will be charged for each successful inquiry operation, up to a maximum of 2,000 operations per month per bank.
  2. A fee of $1.5 will be charged for each successful inquiry operation exceeding the monthly maximum specified in item (1) of this Circular.
  3. A deduction of $700 will be applied to any bank whose number of successful monthly inquiry operations conducted falls below the minimum specified number of inquiries, which will serve as a monthly subscription fee for the bank for using the credit information system. Note that the Palestine Monetary Authority, in order to incentivize banks to use the credit inquiry system, has expanded the minimum threshold for successful inquiry operations from 350 to 466 inquiries.

Based on Item Four of our Circular No. (68/2010) dated 4/7/2010 concerning inquiry fees, we wish to emphasize the following:

  1. The bank shall bear the fees charged for successful inquiry operations conducted and is not permitted to collect them from customers or guarantors for processing inquiries on their behalf.
  2. The following cases are exempt from fees:
    • If the customer being inquired about has no data in the credit information system database, indicated by the credit rating interpretation displaying the following phrase: (No data on customer - EXU)

Department of Public Relations and Market Discipline

Palestine Monetary Authority

Based on the foregoing, bank administrations are requested to disseminate the amended fee policy to their relevant departments. Please note that it will take effect starting June 1, 2014, for inquiry operations conducted during May 2014.

Ramallah - Palestine P.O. Box 452 | Tel: +970 2 2415250 | Fax: +970 2 2409922 | Phone: +970 2 2415250 | Fax: +970 2 2409922 | Ramallah - Palestine P.O. Box 452
Gaza - Palestine PO Box 4026 | Tel: +970 8 2825292 | Fax: +970 8 2844487 | Phone: +970 8 2825292 | Fax: +970 8 2844487 | Gaza - Palestine PO Box 4026
Email: info@pma.ps | Email: info@pma.ps

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