The Bank of Maldives has announced that starting tomorrow, it will apply a transaction fee for purchases on selected e-commerce sites that are growing popular among locals in the Maldives.
In a statement, BML said that it continued to see high volumes of USD transactions on MVR debit cards on selected e-commerce sites (Temu, Shein, Alibaba, AliExpress, Lazada, and eBay) for business purposes.
The Bank said that starting tomorrow, a transaction fee up to 30 percent will be charged for purchases on these selected e-commerce sites.
It clarified that this transaction fee will not apply to other online foreign transactions such as hotel bookings, international flight tickets, or subscriptions.
The Bank added that this transaction fee will not apply to customers using debit cards linked to USD accounts or credit cards.
The popularity of sites like Temu, Shein, etc has skyrocketed in the Maldives as many locals use these sites to operate online e-commerce pages on social media platforms.
