I have moved my mortgage over to NIB to avail of their LTV package. I ended up getting a laser card as part of their 'easy' package but I have no plans to use their banking service. I plan just to feed in my mortage payments from my BofI a/c each month. I have not activated the NIB laser card they sent me. So, if I don't activate it will I still get charged government duty?
AFAIK you only get charged stamp duty on the parts of the card you use. i.e., if you have a dual (laser & ATM) card and only use the ATM element you won't be charged for stamp duty on the laser element.
In your case if you don't use either element then you shouldn't have to pay any duty. see [broken link removed] for more info.
always use my credit card instead of laser. There is no point get taxed on 2 cards which basically do the same thing. Only use I can think for laser is when ATMs run dry....think back to the brinks strike a few years ago