Deutsche Bahn cannot require a customer who buys a transport ticket online by direct debit to be domiciled in Germany, said Advocate General Maciej Szpunar in his Opinion delivered on Thursday 2 May (Case C-28/18).
An Austrian consumer protection association claims that the online payment system of the German railway company, Deutsche Bahn, which accepts payments by direct debit, is in breach of the Regulation (260/2012) establishing a Single Euro Area Payments Area (SEPA). The organisation argues that, since consumers generally have a bank account in a bank established in the member state where they reside, restricting SEPA direct debit transactions to customers domiciled in Germany constitutes discrimination prohibited by the SEPA Regulation.
The Advocate General agrees with the Austrian association. In his view, requiring a customer to reside in a particular Member State is tantamount to specifying the Member State in which a payment account is to be located.
Mr Szpunar refutes Deutsche Bahn's arguments that the SEPA Regulation should be read in the light of the Regulation (2018/302) on geographical blocking. As it is not applicable, it provides that, where the authentication requirements are not met - which, according to Deutsche Bahn, would be the case in this case - discrimination on the basis of place of residence is allowed in payment transactions.
In particular, the Advocate General notes that the purposes of the SEPA Regulations and the Geographical Blocking Regulation differ considerably, and that the SEPA Regulation does not contain any provision to justify discrimination based on the location of the payer's payment account in the case of payments by direct debit.
Finally, Mr Szpunar pointed out that the SEPA Regulation does not oblige a company to offer its customers the possibility of paying by direct debit. However, since it offers such a possibility, this service must be offered in such a way as to avoid any discrimination.
See the findings: http://bit.ly/2vEtVnv (Mathieu Bion)