Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-23-Speech-1-073"
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"en.20070423.16.1-073"2
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".
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, and in particular the rapporteur, Jean-Paul Gauzès, for their excellent work in preparing the report on the directive on payment services in the internal market. I also thank you for your patience regarding the deferral of this plenary vote. This has provided the time needed to find common ground between the three institutions.
Currently, 27 different sets of national rules apply to payment transactions. Although we have the euro, national payments markets continue to be fragmented and, sadly, all too often payments are slow and expensive and consumers poorly served. This makes life for our citizens and businesses more difficult than it should be. It holds up their daily activities and hinders their business development. In some cases, desirable payment products, such as direct debits, are simply not available. The directive aims to remedy this situation in two main ways: on the one hand, by providing greater legal certainty and improved consumer protection, and, on the other hand, by opening up the payments market to more competition to encourage greater efficiency and innovation.
The directive provides greater legal certainty by establishing a harmonised set of rights and obligations for users and providers, as well as clear information requirements. Both are essential to an integrated EU payments market, at the heart of which is SEPA, the Single European Payments Area. SEPA is an industry initiative strongly supported by the European institutions. SEPA will allow for the creation of an integrated market, enabling payments to be executed more quickly and easily throughout the European Union. The efficiency of our payments systems should be enhanced and the cost of payments to the economy as a whole reduced. Adoption of the proposed directive is therefore crucial for the successful launch of SEPA.
But the picture would not be complete without the other objective of the directive, namely that of fostering more competition in payments markets through the establishment of an appropriate and balanced prudential framework for new entrants. New payment institutions, such as money remitters, mobile operators and retailers, should act as a spur to innovation.
Throughout these long months of negotiation, both the Council and the Commission have been very aware of the views set out in the report adopted by the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee last September. The compromise text, which is now on the table as Amendment 286, therefore seeks to meet these objectives and, in particular, calls for a strengthened prudential framework for the new payment institutions. In addition to the qualitative prudential requirements already proposed by the Commission, these new institutions will now be subject to a regime of appropriate and balanced capital charges – both initial and ongoing, and hybrid institutions, such as retailers or telecom companies, must also meet safeguarding requirements such as ring-fencing.
The directive’s scope will be limited to payments that both originate and end in the European Union. It is, however, important not to forget about payment transactions involving non-EU Member States or non-EU currencies. Consumers rightly expect the provisions protecting them with regard to theft, loss or misappropriation of payment instruments to apply irrespective of whether non-authorised use takes place inside or outside the European Union. Performance, quality and price of payments made towards third countries should also improve. EU consumers transfer considerable amounts of funds to third countries, often to support their families. The costs of such payments can be very high. Therefore, after three years of operation, the scope of the directive should be reviewed in order to assess whether ‘one-leg payments’, where only one of the parties involved is in the EU, or payments in non-EU currencies, should be included.
Let me conclude: European citizens and businesses today need a single payments market, in which payments can be made as quickly, efficiently and conveniently as domestic payments. This directive can provide the market with the necessary legal foundation for SEPA and with a new prudential framework fostering new competition."@en1
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