The European Commission has launched a 4 week public consultation on the REFIT review of Regulation (EC) No 924/2009 on cross-border payments in the Community (SEPA Migration Regulation).
The review is one of the first initiatives of the Commission’s Action Plan on Consumer Financial Services to be put into motion.
The inception impact assessment explains that the SEPA Migration Regulation has successfully equalised and therefore lowered charges for cross–border transactions in euros. However, it does not extend to transactions denominated in other EU Member State currencies resulting in economic barriers. Therefore, the Commission is considering extending the scope of the Regulation to all non-euro currencies in the EU.
The Commission has identified three possible courses of action to address these barriers:
- the equalisation of fees for local currency cross-border transfers and corresponding domestic transfers;
- additionally, equalising fees for local currency transactions with euro transactions; and
- imposing requirements on fee structures applied to payment services users such as minimum fees or fee caps.
The legislative proposal is expected to be presented in Q1 2018. In the meantime, the Commission will consult interested stakeholders as well as commissioning a data collection exercise by an external consultant.
View European Commission inception assessment on review of SEPA Migration Regulation, 5 July 2017