05 November 2014

EBA consults on guidelines aimed at standardisation of fee terminology for payment accounts in the EU

The guidelines published aim to assist Competent Authorities across the EU in their task of identifying fee based services in payment accounts, as set out in the Payment Accounts Directive. The Directive requires the EBA to develop standardised terminology related to payment accounts for consumers across the EU. 

This foresees that standardisation of terminology at EU-level starts with services that are common to a majority of Member States.

CAs are required to establish a provisional list of the most representative services of a payment account that are subject to a fee and offered by at least one Payment Service Providers (PSP) in their own jurisdictions. Lists should include at least 10, but no more than 20, of the most representative services and the draft Guidelines developed by the EBA aim to ensure the sound application of the criteria in the Payments Account Directive, and establish how CAs should apply them, what factors they should take into consideration, how they should report their list, and what supportive data should be obtained.

The Payment Accounts Directive foresees that CAs take into consideration the services that are most commonly used by consumers in relation to their payment account and that generate the highest cost for consumers, both overall, as well as per unit.

These lists will be functional to the work of the EBA in developing EU-level standardisation of the terminology. The lists received by CAs will then be incorporated in two new information documents to be developed by the EBA: the Fee Information Document and the Statement of Fees. Separate consultations on these documents will follow in 2015.

Comments to this consultation can be sent to the EBA by 9 January 2015.

Press release

Consultation paper

Guidelines

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