​Following concerns raised in the Competition Commission Bank Enquiry Report regarding interchange fees, the South African Reserve Bank initiated the Interchange Determination Project in 2011to review interchange rates applied in all relevant payment streams. Two payment streams were selected for the initial phase of the project, namely ATM and all card-related streams.The ATM payment stream was selected as the first phase for the project and the determination of interchange fee calculation method applicable for this payment stream was communicated with details of a sustainable regulatory process going forward on 18 December 2013 (click here for more information). The card payment stream phase included investigations into debit, credit and hybrid cards (e.g. cheque cards), as well as cash-back at point-of-sale (withdrawals at point-of-sale). This phase has now been concluded and the following interchange fees have been determined. A single rate has been determined for cash-back transactions at a fixed rate of R1, 11 applicable from 1 January 2015. The interchange rate for cards currently consists of a variable rate, being a percentage of the transaction. This variable rate has been retained; however, the new interchange structure has been adjusted, resulting in 12 rates, instead of the current 3 rates. This was done to achieve the balance required between additional complexity (innovation and risk) and keeping the rates as simple as possible.  The new interchange rates for debit and credit card transactions are as follows:  Debit cardCredit cardCard-present purchase (issuer and acquirer EMV1compliant)0,44%1,48%Card-present purchase (only the issuer is EMV compliant)0,52%1,55%Card-present purchase (only the acquirer is EMV compliant)0,36%1,41%Card-not-present purchase (issuer and acquirer is 3D Secure2 compliant)0,48%1,73%Card-not-present purchase (only the issuer is 3D Secure compliant)0,53%1,89%Card-not-present purchase (only the acquirer is 3D Secure compliant)0,43%1,57%Cash-back at POSR1,11/transaction The new rates will be effective from 1 January 2015 and will be reviewed on an on-going basis.  Issued by:Hlengani MathebulaHead Group Strategy and CommunicationsTel: +27 12 313 4210Cell: +27 82 448 9219For detailed information on the card results of the Interchange Determination Projectclick here(link to detailed document).Note to editors: Interchange is a term used in the payment card industry to describe a fee paid between banks for the acceptance of card based transactions. Usually it is a fee that a merchant's bank (the "acquiring bank") pays a customer's bank (the "issuing bank").  [1]Europay, MasterCard and Visa. A chip-card standard for card-types2Refers to XML-based protocol designed to be an additional security layer for card-not-present card transactions