During the plenary session (11-14 February 2019) of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, MEPs vote on a new law putting an end to the discrimination that payment service users in the EU outside the Eurozone face. Banks would need to charge equally for cross-border payments in euro and domestic payments and make currency conversion costs more transparent.

Charges on cross-border payments in the EU and conversion fees: extracts from the debate (13/02) and from the vote on the report Eva MAYDELL (EPP, BG)

SOUNDBITE (Bulgarian), Eva MAYDELL (EPP, BG), In order to put an end to a double yard stick in Europe, 150 million Europeans and 6 million businesses that are outside the Euro area will have to pay substantially lower fees for cross-border transfers, and this will greatly facilitate their operations. The proposal shows that we can make swift and important decisions to the benefit of citizens and businesses.

SOUNDBITE (English), Valdis DOMBROVSKIS, Vice-President of the EC in charge of the Euro and Social Dialogue, Consumers will be able to compare charges when shopping abroad with their cards, when withdrawing cash at the ATM abroad and when sending to money to a Member State using a different EU currency from their online banking platforms. This will boost competition between providers and such currency conversion services and should thus lower the cost of transactions between Member States in different currencies. 

SOUNDBITE (German), Othmar KARAS (EPP, AT), This is a good thing for the single market which reinforces and makes transfers cheaper and increases transparencency. It also makes the payment service market more competitive. For 150 million users and 6 million businesses, this is going to be good news. We've shown that we are continuing to develop the single market. First it was roaming fees, now we are doing away with the equivalent roaming fees for transfers money between banks.

SOUNDBITE (French), Pervenche BER&#200;S (S&amp;D, FR), The European Parliament had one further desire which was to ensure that the transparency of fees could be communicated to communicate the fee to consumers at the point of sale or when they go to the cash point. Because then consumers would be able to compare the various options. Unfortunately, the Commission didn't go along with that. We now have a text that provides that information but not in real time.  

SOUNDBITE (Portuguese), Miguel VIEGAS (GUE/NGL, PT), Over 5.14 million per day are taken by Portuguese finance institutions. More than 4,000 employees were made redundant in 2017 by the banks. And several banks were closed down. So you can see that banks are winning on both sides.

SOUNDBITE (Bulgarian), Eva MAYDELL (EPP, BG), Technologies are galloping, there is no doubt that this type of information is not so difficult to present to the customer and it doesn't take any great costs.

EP Vice President opens the floor for the voting procedure.  SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH), Eva MAYDELL (EPP, BG) Rapporteur, Thank you Chair. Colleagues, briefly I just want to draw your attention because today with this report, we abolish the so called roaming fee for cross border payments. In this way we A) show to the European citizens that we can deliver fast and tangible results and B) save them billions of euros annually. And not least we also put the single market for payments at an equal footing, irrespective of whether you come from a Eurozone country or non- Eurozone country. Thank You.  View of MEPs voting on Rapporteur Eva MAYDELL (EPP, BG) report.  Screenshot of the results of the vote. 532 votes in favour, 22 against and 55 abstentions.

Charges on cross-border payments in the EU and conversion fees: extracts from the debate (13/02) and from the vote on the report Eva MAYDELL (EPP, BG)

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