WILLEMSTAD/PHILIPSBURG — Transaction fees of local banks in Curaçao are among the lowest in the region. That is the outcome of a comparative analyses of bank transaction fees in Curaçao and Sint Maarten valid per 2022 conducted by the Centrale Bank van Curaçao en Sint Maarten (CBCS). In this analysis the transaction fees of local banks are compared with several countries in the region and the Netherlands. The countries included in the comparison are Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Jamaica, Sint Maarten and Trinidad & Tobago. The research was conducted in cooperation with all 7 local banks and 1 credit institution in Curaçao and was a follow up on previous research by the CBCS titled ‘Households’ financial affairs in Curaçao 2020’. 81% of the respondents at that time agreed that there is a need to reduce the transaction fees, implying these fees are too high. In view of this, the CBCS committed itself to investigate the extent of this matter.
Fees development 2022 vs 2019
The CBCS compared previously collected fees per 2019 with the current fees per 2022 to see whether there have been fee changes during the last few years. The results show that since 2019 most banks increased their administration fees, especially their in-branch service fees (Figure 1)1. However, the online banking services remained free of charge or in some instances even decreased in the effort to promote the use of digital payments.
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