Costa Rica's
Banks Cashing In With SINPE
Last year the Banco Central de Costa Rica (BCCR)
- Central Bank - introduced a system to
transfer funds between financial
institutions in a effort to streamline the
country's banking system.
The system called SINPE, allows the transfer
of money from different banking - state and
private - entities in Costa Rica by way of a
private communications network.
With the Sistema Nacional de Pagos
Electronicos money can be transferred from a
Costa Rican bank account to any third party
with a Costa Rican bank account, all in a
secure environment, with the only
requirement to have either a savings,
checking or credit card account at a local
bank.
Customers can then request the 17 digit
SINPE number that is used to send and
receive funds.
And surprising of all the system works, but
there is a cost. And that cost is a source
of discontent by many customers who face a
range of cost from as low as us$1 to us$25
to use the service. The cost of the
transaction is not regulated and financial
institutions can charge as they please.
The cost to the financial institutions is
¢150 colones per transaction, of which ¢50
colones is paid to SINPE and ¢100 to the
receiving bank.
For the Central Bank it means an revenue
stream of between ¢2.5 and ¢3 billion
colones a year, which goes towards operating
and maintaining the system that last year
handled 16.9 million transactions moving
some ¢97.5 billion colones.
The "financial highway" has also been a boom
for the banks.
At the Banco de Costa Rica (BCR), for
instance, they charge us$1.50 for a transfer
for delivery the day following next or us$4
for an instant transfer, all done online.
Private banks like HSBC charges us$5 for
each SINPE transaction.
The Banco Central publishes on its website a
list of fees charged by the differing
financial institutions (http://www.bccr.fi.cr/SINPE/ComiCob.html),
which very few people even know exists.
Source: Banco Central de Costa Rica |
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