[author: Alexandra Keenan]

On November 5, European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (“ECON“) announced that it had voted to adopt a draft report amending the Regulation on cross-border payments (Regulation 924/2009) (the “Regulation“) about certain charges on cross-border payments in the EU.

A first change voted on and addressed in the report relates to the costs incurred for cross-border payments in euro from non-euro area Member States.

Under the Regulation, there is no difference for euro area consumers or businesses if they carry out euro transactions in their own country or with another country of the euro area, whereas cross-border payments in euro from non-euro area Member States can be as high as €20. The amendments voted on now seek to extend this benefit that euro area consumers have to non-euro countries, as otherwise non-euro member states are “at a disadvantage in the EU Single Market” according to members of the European Parliament. It has now been agreed to align charges for cross-border payments within the EU with charges for domestic payments made in the official currency of a member state to ultimately allow all consumers and businesses in the EU to fully reap the benefits of the Single Market.

The second change contained in the report proposes more transparency in relation to currency conversion services so that consumers are aware of the costs applied to cross-border payments in the EU before any transaction is entered into. For card-based payments, information regarding all currency conversion options should be provided free of charge, points of sales and ATMs should always provide the option of paying in the local currency, customers should always be able to both block or switch to alternative currency conversion services and currency conversion rates should be those valid at the time of the start of the transaction.

A draft version of the report is available here.