The main objectives of Regulation (2015/751), which caps multilateral interchange fees (MIFs) for credit and immediate debit card payments, have been achieved, such that legislative reform is not necessary at this stage, says the European Commission in a report it published on Monday 29 June.
MIFs are commissions paid by a merchant’s bank to the bank of the cardholder of the payment card used in a transaction.
On the basis of an external study published in March (see EUROPE 12444/10), the report concludes that capping interchange fees has led to a decrease in merchant fees for card payments and has contributed to improved services to consumers and lower retail prices.
On the latter point, the long-term savings for final consumers reportedly ranges between 864 and 1,930 million euros.
The Commission notes, moreover, that the market has become integrated with an increase in payment services provided and transactions carried out on a cross-border basis. Competition has also increased with the arrival of platforms such as Google and Alibaba on the e-wallet market, with 25 e-wallets operating on an international basis.
Nevertheless, the report calls for vigilance in market segments where data are scarce or only recently available due to the still recent application of certain of the regulation’s provisions (see EUROPE 11569/22 and 11330/23).
The issue of ‘scheme fees’, which are not covered by European legislation, will also have to be analysed. On this point, the EuroCommerce organisation, which represents retail and wholesale traders, deplored on Monday the fact that fees not covered by the regulation have increased by at least 50% since 2018. It is also calling for the removal of exceptions for, for example, tripartite schemes, commercial cards, withdrawals and virtual card transactions.
In the European Union, 70 billion transactions were carried out using bank cards in 2017, representing 52% of non-cash transactions. The Covid-19 pandemic is “accelerating” the trend towards contactless electronic payment, notes the Commission.
See the Commission’s report: https://bit.ly/2YFW2SP (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)