Brussels, 16/04/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 16 April, the European Commission said that it had been “informed” about the project by several banks in the EU to create a debit card network to rival those of Visa and MasterCard. According to certain media sources, the French banks Société Générale and BNP Paribas, and the German banks Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank, may decide to launch a new card network in the next few months. The “Monnet” project takes the name of the first president of the Senior Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). The spokesperson for European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes pointed out that the Commission supported more competition in this sector. He recognised that “the members” of this new debit card project had met the Commission to express their ideas but affirmed that “it should not be inferred that we gave the project the green light”. He explained that the Commission is “in contact with a whole range of banks and other debit card stakeholders”. According to the Financial Times on 16 April, the French and German bank project will depend on a sufficiently high level of agreement for inter-banking commissions (payments by the trader's bank to the purchaser during a card payment transaction). The spokesperson pointed out the rules used when accepting these commissions: if an agreement between the different establishments on setting the rates of commission is obtained, companies should also be able to obtain both economic and technical benefits, as should consumers. (L.C.)