Cash or Card, How to Pay When Abroad? – NBS Warning of Fees

Ahead of the preparations for traveling abroad, many have a dilemma – whether it is smarter, but also safer, to carry cash or to pay by card. Nikola Djukic of the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) says for RTS that citizens should be careful when using cards abroad, especially when they are withdrawing cash from an ATM, since fees are charged.

Increasingly frequently, the citizens are receiving text messages in which unknown persons present themselves falsely as various service providers.

– Convinced that they are paying somewhat, of course, lower amounts for picking up shipments or, for example, for renewing subscriptions with streaming operators such as Netflix, the citizens give their card data. However, they don’t do it on the website of the provider of the service, but on a false web page that the criminals have created with the aim of taking their card data. These are the name, the date of the expiration of the card, the card number, and most importantly, those three numbers that are on the back of the card, and which are the CCV code for the execution of the transaction – Djukic said.

He added that the citizens had time to block the card and that they should contact the bank in that case.

– So, you should ignore the text message, not continue. If it has already happened and they have accessed the link, they should pay attention to what kind of a website they have visited. So, those are fake web pages – pointed out Nikola Djukic.

When abroad, use cards for payment, fees at ATMs for cash withdrawals

Talking about using payment cards when abroad, Djukic said that there might be a fee, but that it depended on where the card was used.

– What we recommend is to use the payment card at vendors at POS terminals. When we use the card, we should first check, as there are stickers which mark a certain card brand, so to say. Second, we should also check whether all the vendors accept our card. If we are forced to raise cash from an ATM, fees are charged in that case – Djukic emphasized and added that the fees are mostly higher for credit cards than for debit card.

He noted that cards should be used carefully and that the user should not give the PIN to anybody.

Nikola Djukic said that, before going abroad, you should contact the bank and ask about the conditions of the use of payment cards in other countries, and if the card is lost during the trip or the ATM “swallows” it, you should inform the bank.

Narodna banka Srbije Beograd

National Bank of Serbia

NBS

Nikola Đukić

Netflix

card payment abroad

cash payment abroad

CCV code

card payment fees