Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-02-13-Speech-1-116-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20120213.17.1-116-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, you know how much I appreciate your actions and everything you are doing. The issue we are dealing with this evening is important. It happens that I was rapporteur for the directive on payment services in the previous mandate. I therefore know how important it is to work towards harmonising payment services across Europe.
This evening, allow me simply to discuss one issue which angers people: multilateral interchange fees. From the beginning, I have defended these fees and I had the opportunity to do so when we launched the first SEPA transfer in 2007. Interchange fees are legitimate. What is not legitimate is setting them at rates which are excessively high.
Why are these fees legitimate? They are legitimate because payment services are a commercial service. The institutions, that is, banks or payment institutions established under Title II of the directive I mentioned just a moment ago, must undertake commercial activity. It is therefore normal that they should receive remuneration. This must obviously be justified by the service provided and, from this point of view, interchange fees — it is true — were, for a certain period of time, set unduly high.
However, today, things have changed and the situation we are arriving at thanks to this new text, this regulation, is something of a paradox. Firstly, this text regulates an issue which was under discussion in the Court of Justice of the European Union; it authorises interchange fees at national level until 2017. It bans them sooner for cross-border operations but allows interchange fees to operate if payment is refused or rejected. None of that is very consistent.
We must not let what has been done this time serve as an example for the coming regulation on bank cards. Reflection must be better led in this area and the fact that only six countries have resorted to using interchange fees does not mean to say that they are useless. Why? Because otherwise there is no transparency; we would pay for payment services using other means of payment, for example, cheques."@en1
|
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples