REGULATION ON CROSS-BOARDER PAYMENTS ADOPTED

14 December 2001



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Council and European Parliament have adopted the Regulation on cross-boarder payments in euro. Under the Regulation:

  • charges for withdrawals from cash machines and the use of bank cards (up to ©½,500) must be the same, when denominated in euros, for both national and cross-border transactions, from 1 July 2002;
  • the charges for credit transfers (up to ©½,500) between bank accounts must be the same, when denominated in euros, for both national and cross-border transactions, from 1 July 2003;
  • customers must be properly informed in advance of charges for making national and cross-border payments and of any changes to those prices;
  • use of the ISO standard codes, namely IBAN (International Bank Account Number) and BIC (Bank Identifier Code), becomes mandatory, in order to allow banks to process credit transfers in a fully automated way;
  • banks will no longer need to declare to the authorities any payment below ©½,500;
  • payments in non-euro currencies will also be subject to the Regulation if the Member States where those currencies are used notify the Commission that they want the rules to apply.

    The Regulation¡¯s rules will be extended to cash machine withdrawals, use of bank cards and credit transfers up to euro 50,000 from 1 January 2006

    See full Regulation and
    Commission Press release

    © European Commission