Morocco Card Interchange Fees Capped at 0.50% in 2026

In Short

• Bank Al-Maghrib will cap Morocco’s domestic card interchange fees at 0.50% from October 1, 2026.
• A lower 0.15% cap will apply to payments to government services and some small local merchants.
• The central bank says the goal is to lower merchant costs and support wider digital payments adoption.

What Happened

Morocco card interchange fees are set to fall again, after Bank Al-Maghrib announced new caps for domestic bank card payments.

From October 1, 2026, the interchange fee cap will be 0.50%, down from 0.65%. Interchange fees are the charges banks pay each other when a customer uses a card, and merchants usually end up paying for them through card acceptance costs.

Bank Al-Maghrib also introduced a reduced cap of 0.15% for payments made to government services and for some small local merchants. Both caps are exclusive of tax.

The new pricing does not apply to transactions using foreign-issued bank cards. It also does not cover ATM cash withdrawals or payments routed through three-party card schemes, which are setups where the same network acts as issuer and acquirer.

The decision builds on earlier reforms in 2024, when regulators pushed the Interbank Electronic Banking Center, also known as CMI, to end its long-standing monopoly over merchant acquiring. Merchant acquiring is the business of signing up merchants to accept card payments and settling those transactions.

Regulators say these steps shifted Morocco from a single-acquirer market to a multi-acquirer market, which should increase competition and reduce payment acceptance fees.

Why It Matters

Lower interchange fees can reduce the cost of accepting card payments for merchants, especially small businesses that are sensitive to fees. That can make it easier for payment providers to sell point-of-sale acceptance, and for merchants to encourage customers to pay digitally.

But cash is still dominant in Morocco. GlobalData estimates that 53.4% of adults were unbanked in 2026, and it expects close to 84% of consumer payments to be in cash this year.

Still, digital usage is rising. Mobile payment transaction volumes reportedly grew from 9.7 million in 2023 to 19.7 million in 2025, reaching MAD 3.9 billion, about $430 million. Bank Al-Maghrib and the Competition Council say they will keep monitoring the market to expand access to secure and affordable electronic payments.