These fees are charged by consumers’ banks to merchants for payment card transactions made with either debit or credit cards. Among others, the agreement stresses that fees charged to merchants for accepting consumer card payments will be limited to 0.2% (or EUR 0.05 maximum fixed fee) for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards, with the option for Member States to set lower fees.
These caps will apply as from six months after entry into force of the MIF Regulation. The caps would apply to both cross-border and domestic card-based payments and should cut costs for merchants and consumers. This measure will ensure the continuation of current functioning national schemes.
The document agreed upon by the ECON Committee will break the “honor all cards rule” (with the exception of cards of the same brand and category which are subject to the same caps above) and the anti-steering provisions. For online merchants it means that they will be free to choose which cards to accept on their online shops.
The European Parliament’s plenary still has to vote on the deal and this is expected to happen in April 2015. The rules will then need to be officially endorsed by the Council before they can take effect, six months after the legislation enters into force.
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