"To protect consumers and bank customers, we have approved a law that imposes limits on bank fees for instant transfers using mobile phone apps", said the Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro.

As the minister explains, what this measure implies is "applying the same limit that exists for payments with debit cards" and, in this way, "protecting bank customers and consumers".

Deco – Portuguese Association for Consumer Protection had already warned of the risk of an increase in fees for the MB Way service following the new regime for transfers between payment accounts.

The association had explained at the time that “the association of MB Way with accounts will mean that transfers between users will be considered immediate transfers”, and therefore “they may be subject to the price list applicable to these transfers and not subject to the limits applicable to transfers between cards, as is currently the case, and in the event of exceeding the free transactions, of 0.2% in the case of debit cards and 0.3% in the case of credit cards”.

Following these alerts, the Ministry of Economy and the Bank of Portugal had already signalled that they were monitoring this issue, namely the risk of increased costs associated with this service, which is therefore being safeguarded.