BigPay has announced some changes to the fees for some of its services that would affect Malaysian users. Going into effect this 30 August, the changes include an additional 0.5% fee for MYR transactions overseas and a 1 to 3% fee for credit card top-ups.
In an e-mail to its Malaysian users today, BigPay said that for transactions done with merchants outside of Malaysia but charged in Malaysian Ringgit, there will be an additional 0.5% fee in addition to any other charges made by the payment network. In most cases, this should total to around a 1.5% fee, though it may be subject to changes.
This includes payments made through the physical and virtual BigPay card, for both online and in-person transactions. The fintech company thus advises users to pay in the local currency of the country they’re in, as they would otherwise likely be charged a higher foreign currency exchange rate.
As an example, if you're a BigPay Malaysia customer paying for purchases on a US-based online store, and choosing to pay in MYR instead of USD, there will be a 0.5% cross-border transaction fee on top of the network charge which is determined and charged by Visa. In the case of a traveller - if you're paying in Thai Baht in Thailand, you would only be incurring the currency conversion fee (to convert your MYR balance to THB), which would be up to 1% on currency conversion fee + network charge which is again, determined and charged by Visa.
Besides that, starting 30 August, all top-ups using a Malaysian-issued credit card would be charged a 1% fee, with the fee being at a higher 3% rate when using a non-Malaysian-issued credit card. The fee will be charged regardless of the top-up amount, essentially retconning its current practice of charging a 1% fee after users have exceeded an RM1000 top-up via credit card in that particular month.
The prepaid credit card service thus advises users to top-up their cards via DuitNow, which is 100% fee-free. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can do so.
For more information on these changes, visit BigPay’s latest product disclosure here. As always, do stay tuned to TechNave for more trending tech news such as this.
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