Haiti Aid Card Charges Waived

After credit card companies and firms got some major criticisms for charging their well known hidden fees or the interchange fees on donations to the Haiti tragedy, major credit card companies in the country like Visa, American Express, MasterCard and Discover have decided to finally waive contribution fees to Haiti.

Recently, a Huffington Post report placed some criticism on credit card companies and banks for making money off of charitable contributions made through credit cards. The recent tragedy at Haiti highlighted this fact while also focusing on how this increases the profits that banks and credit card companies make from charitable contributions.

Banks and Credit card companies regularly charge interchange fees whenever a consumer uses his or her credit cards. Even if these credit card transactions turn out to be charitable donations, banks and credit card companies still skim off 3% from a transaction. Thus, whenever a donation is made through a credit card transaction, only 97% of this amount will actually make it to the intended charitable organization. Credit card companies and banks see an income of around $250 million every year just from transaction fees taken from transactions for charitable contributions.

Reacting to recent criticisms, the four major credit card companies have announced that they would stop applying interchange fees to a select number of donations. Visa announced that they would stop charging interchange fees up to February for donations made to a select few major charities that are providing relief efforts and donations to the tragedy that struck Haiti. The final list of the included charities is still being compiled. It also announced that the revenue it generates from charitable donations to Haiti through the next month will be donated by the company.

MasterCard has also agreed to waive interchange fees for relief donations. However, they would only waive fees if the donation is made with a MasterCard credit card issued from the United States and if the donation is sent to AmeriCares, Unicef, American Red Cross, Care USA and Save the Children.

American Express, on the other hand, has stated that it would be rebating transaction fees for charitable contributions up until the end of February. The contributions have to be made directly to nonprofit organizations which are on the Agency for International Development’s website supporting Haiti relief efforts in order to qualify for rebates.

Discover has also announced that it would also be waiving some credit card fees that they implement. However, the company did not produce any details on how it would do so.