Tesco Bank Cut UK Rewards but Not Irish Rewards. Strange.

Tesco Bank have offered to their UK credit card holders.

From 1 December 2015, all customers will accrue one point per £8 spent on non-Tesco spending, compared to one point per £4 now. So a £100 transaction will get you 12.5 points compared to 25 now.

The reason for the change is the same reason why Ulster Bank are getting rid of their reward scheme:

'Interchange fees', as they are known in the industry, typically add around 8p per transaction for debit card payments and around 0.8% of the transaction for credit card payments.

In March, MEPs voted in favour of bringing in a cap of 0.2% of the value of the transaction on debit cards and 0.3% of the value of the transaction for credit cards. This will take force on 9 December 2015.

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Meanwhile, Tesco Banks Irish customers, continue to get 1 point per 2 EUR spent outside Tesco Ireland stores. Tesco Bank are either about to do a similar cut for their Irish customers or potentially they are about to exit the Irish market. An exit is plausible given that Tesco Bank have exited all other banking business lines here and intercharge fees will make their operation less profitable.

For a moment Ciaran I thought you were giving us good news! I'll keep my fingers crossed. The points are worth several hundred to me in a year.

It almost covers my Tesco mobile plan for the year of 360 Euro when points are trebled and used as bill pay credits on my plan. Hopefully they don't pull out.