By Paul Makin
Fees are an important part of the design of an instant payment system, but not all fees represent the same kind of financial obligation.
New Fees and Tariffs documentation in the Mojaloop Product documentation set provides adopters with a framework for designing and implementing fees within a Mojaloop scheme.
Different Fees, Different Treatment
The documentation distinguishes between three principal types of fee:
- Customer transaction fees: charges associated with providing a payment service to the payer or payee, established through Mojaloop’s Agreement of Terms mechanism.
- Interchange fees: obligations between participating DFSPs arising from transactions processed through the scheme. These are borne by DFSPs rather than recovered directly from customers.
- Hub or scheme operator fees: charges owed by participants to the organisation operating the Hub or scheme.
The key principle is that calculating a fee is separate from accounting for and settling it.
For interchange, Mojaloop can calculate the applicable tariff and record the resulting obligation between DFSPs using interchange fee accounts. These obligations can accumulate and subsequently be incorporated into settlement, avoiding a separate payment for every interchange charge.
Hub fees are treated differently. The Hub can periodically calculate what each participant owes and collect the amount as a normal Mojaloop payment, for example through Request to Pay.
This approach also keeps the Hub out of participants’ financial positions. Interchange remains an obligation between DFSPs: the scheme does not guarantee it or assume the associated credit risk.
Why This Matters for Adopters
Individual schemes will make their own policy decisions about customer charges, interchange and participant fees. The new documentation provides a common architecture for implementing those choices while maintaining a clear distinction between who is charged, how the charge is calculated, who owes the resulting obligation, and how it is ultimately settled.
For scheme operators, central banks, DFSPs and implementation partners designing the commercial model for a Mojaloop deployment, it provides a practical starting point for incorporating tariffs and fees into the scheme design.
