KEY POINTS:
TSB is to pay $471,000 after becoming the seventh major bank to admit failing to properly disclose currency conversion fees paid by credit card customers, the Commerce Commission says.
In Auckland District Court yesterday, TSB pleaded guilty to 13 charges of breaching the Fair Trading Act.
The company was fined a total of $280,000, and agreed to pay $151,000 in compensation to affected customers.
TSB will also pay $40,000 in costs to the commission.
This prosecution against TSB - as well as actions against ANZ National Bank, BNZ, Westpac, Kiwibank, ASB and The Warehouse Financial Services - has resulted in a total payout of more than $27.3 million in compensation to customers, fines and costs, the commission said.
Affected TSB customers would be contacted by the bank.
They would have made transactions in foreign currency between September 2002 and December 2004 on TSB's Visa credit card.
The charges arose because the "exchange rate" used to convert foreign currency transactions into New Zealand dollars included a fee payable to TSB of 0.75 per cent and a fee payable to the credit card provider of 1 per cent.
- NZPA
