The government wants to encourage more electronic transactions and will provide subsidies for point of sale machines.
Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says the cost of the point of sale machines is about $750 which will be reduced.
He says there are 4 million electronic transactions taking place in Fiji annually.
Sayed-Khaiyum says the government would like to see more electronic transactions but it will not increase if transaction fees are high.
He says at the moment, a customer is charged 50 cents for swiping the ATM card for a transaction and the shopkeeper gets charged 30 cents.
He says the banks are making a bit of a killing, where they make 80 cents on one transaction.
Sayed-Khaiyum says they have got the banks to agree that from the 1st of January next year, they will no longer charge fees on transactions to buy things from supermarkets.
He says the government is working with the banks to reduce the 30 cents they charge to shopkeepers and are willing to subsidize to the tune of 10 cents per transaction to encourage people to use more electronic transactions.
Sayed-Khaiyum says electronic transactions will enable them to know how much money people are withdrawing, how much money people are paying, and the revenue made by shops can also be tracked. He says if shops deal in cash, the money will end up in their pockets, so the revenue gets understated.
