The European Banking Federation (FBE) welcomes the publication by the European Commission of the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and Council on payment services in the internal market, commonly referred to as the New Legal Framework for Payments.
While the initial aim of the Directive, the regulation of non-bank payment service providers, has been expanded to establish high level consumer protection requirements and liabilities for all payment service providers in the market including banks, the proposal has nevertheless substantially gained in clarity compared to previous draft versions.
The FBE would like to underline the importance of striking the right balance between consumer protection requirements and the associated costs, in order to avoid any adverse effect.
In the absence of an inventory of existing national laws regarding payments, the FBE hopes that the Directive Proposal will indeed address all areas in payments that until today constitute legal barriers to an integrated European payments market. In a joint effort European Banks are working on the creation of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).
The provision of a harmonized legal environment for payments is an essential building block of SEPA. In that context, the Commission shall play an active role in the removal of legal hurdles so as to support the deployment of the future SEPA payment instruments.