This week, EUROPE is publishing a series of working documents (see EUROPE 13282/8), sent to the delegations of the Member States by the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council, concerning several aspects of the digital euro project. The documents provided input for the work of the EU Council working group on 24 October on the European Commission’s proposal to provide a legal framework for the digital euro, should it be launched (see EUROPE 13211/11).
One of these documents concerns charges for digital euro payment services, as referred to in Article 17 of the proposal.
The document defines a merchant service charge as a fee paid by the payee to a payment service provider (or PSP) when acquiring a digital payment transaction in euros.
Furthermore, for the Presidency, an “inter-PSP fee” should be understood as a commission paid by the “acquiring” payment service provider to the “distributing” payment service provider. The aim of this fee is to enable these service providers to obtain remuneration for distributing digital euros to users, in a context where they have to provide services free of charge, and the digital euro will have legal tender status.
The Presidency stresses that the economics of this remuneration model imply that the merchant’s service charge consists of the commission between PSPs + what is known as a system commission, which is the settlement commission + a profit margin for the acquiring PSP.
Under the terms of Article 17 of the proposal, the European Central Bank will be responsible for setting the maximum amount of these two types of charge, while respecting the principle of proportionality.
Furthermore, Article 17(1) states that PSPs will not be able to charge natural persons for basic services related to the digital euro, with the exception of individuals residing in Member States outside the euro area and those residing in third countries, unless they are visiting the euro area.
However, some additional services could be offered for a fee.
In this regard, the Presidency reports that some States have pointed out that natural persons may include self-employed workers who are not consumers, which could result in asymmetrical treatment compared to commercial legal persons.
The Presidency has put forward a proposal for a solution that would involve defining natural persons for the purposes of basic services as consumers, as opposed to commercial self-employed persons.
In this context, the Presidency proposes using the definition of consumer provided by Directive EU/2014/92 on payment services.
Finally, the Presidency addressed a number of questions to the delegations to gauge their alignment with these various provisions. It also asked them to define the price limits for the various charges.
Further information: https://aeur.eu/f/9c7 (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst and Mathieu Bion)