Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-13-Speech-2-254"
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"en.20010313.16.2-254"2
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". – I reiterate and stress that the Commission shares the anger of consumers. As I said in my first reply, it is not acceptable that cross-border payments are so much more expensive than payments made within the borders of any one country, so the concerns of the honourable Member are shared by the Commission.
However, I must repeat that the Commission is not in the business of regulating prices: the Commission cannot tell banks what to charge. The Commission can urge the banking industry and national administrations to intensify their efforts in the following areas: standardisation, infrastructure of payment systems and simplification of reporting obligations.
To begin with the last point, the Commission has been able to achieve a certain success in avoiding the necessity to report operations under EUR 12 500. Parliament and the Commission are at one in wanting to increase that cut-off point to EUR 50 000 per transfer. I made that clear when I spoke on the Peijs report. So in the matter of the simplification of reporting obligations, the Commission has been able to achieve a step forward.
On the matter of standardisation, there is IBAN, the international banking account number, and the BIC, the bank identifier code. Both of these codes should make the transfer of money simpler, faster and cheaper. The Commission is actively working on familiarising the general public with both the IBAN and BIC in order to make them use them for so-called straight-through processing and therefore cheaper transfers.
As far as infrastructure is concerned, the Commission is again active on this front and has introduced a new low-value payment system – a particular system for small payments – called Step 1 by the Euro Banking Association. That has been in operation since 20 November 2000 and ought to contribute to more efficiency and therefore lower prices.
In addition to that, some sectors have established their own systems, but only members or partners of those organisations have access to those systems.
So I would assure the honourable Members that we share their concerns. It is not the business of the Commission to regulate prices – price control is a thing of the past. The matters which occupy the Commission's mind are, as I have said, standardisation, the infrastructure and simplification of reporting procedures and obligations. The Commission is active in improving the situation. No doubt, also as a result of competition, prices will go down. But at the moment they are far too high, and that is not acceptable."@en1
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