EBF advisor: Elona Morina
k
Publication date: 17 January 2020
The EBF acknowledges that the Directive represents an important and well-known tool supporting harmonising consumer protection rules on payment accounts within the Union. We also note that the recent transposition deadline of the Directive means that its complete impact and capabilities have still to fully unfold and it is impossible, at this point in time, to have a full assessment of the impact of the Directive in the market.
Moreover, several consumers’ satisfaction surveys undertaken in different member states show that consumers are well aware of and very satisfied with the switching services offered by their providers. For example, in a member state a 2019 study showed that awareness and satisfaction levels for the Current Account Switching Service remained consistently high at 79% and 92% respectively.
Finally, In line with the above, we also strongly recommend refraining from introducing IBAN-portability requirements without a detailed cost-benefit analysis clearly showing that the benefits for consumers outweigh the impact of a measure that would heavily damage the EU payment system.
For more information:
Elona Morina, e.morina@ebf.eu
Subscribe to the EBF Weekly + FinReg Agenda
Every Friday at noon you can receive the EBF Weekly + Financial Regulation Agenda. This agenda presents an overview of upcoming European and international meetings and conferences in financial regulation, as well as important general financial and economic events and key EBF meetings for the week ahead. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE
Subscribe to the EBF Morning Brief
The EBF Morning Brief is published Monday through Friday morning and brings you the top banking headlines, relevant announcements from the EU institutions and the latest from the EBF and its members, national banking associations in 32 countries in Europe. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE
The post EBF’s views on the evaluation of the Payment Accounts Directive appeared first on EBF.
]]>
Brussels, 8 November 2019
Joint Industry Statement: Council adoption of VAT reporting measures – payments industry remains concerned
The European Payment Institutions Federation, the European Banking Federation, the European Savings and Retail Banking Group and the European Association of Co-operative Banks note the adoption today by the ECOFIN Council of the proposal on VAT-related information reporting requirements imposed on Banks and Payment Service Providers.
Throughout the legislative procedure we have consistently raised concerns about the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposal as drafted. As outlined in our recent Joint Statement, these concerns have not been taken into account to a degree that would give comfort to the industry that the reporting requirements can be implemented with reasonable efforts and can result in meaningful information to the tax authorities. We would like to again reiterate that as an industry we are very supportive of the objectives of the proposal to fight VAT fraud but that we are simply highlighting that the adopted proposal is not in our view a proportionate and most effective way to collect this information.
Therefore, we are disappointed to see that the ECOFIN has adopted the proposal without the modifications needed by the industry. We now call upon the Member States and the Commission to closely involve the payments industry in the design of the details of the reporting framework. A constructive dialogue going forward is crucial to make sure that we build a reporting system that delivers the needed information to authorities but at the same time preserves the established way of functioning of the payments industry and does not create undue burden. We request that a joint group composed of Commission, Member State and industry expert is established with a view to achieve this.
Contact:
Anni Mykkanen, a.mykkanen@ebf.eu
Nahuel Mercedes, +32 (0)2 508 3748, n.mercedes@ebf.eu
Subscribe to the EBF Weekly + FinReg Agenda
Every Friday at noon you can receive the EBF Weekly + Financial Regulation Agenda. This agenda presents an overview of upcoming European and international meetings and conferences in financial regulation, as well as important general financial and economic events and key EBF meetings for the week ahead. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE
Subscribe to the EBF Morning Brief
The EBF Morning Brief is published Monday through Friday morning and brings you the top banking headlines, relevant announcements from the EU institutions and the latest from the EBF and its members, national banking associations in 32 countries in Europe. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE
The post Joint Industry Statement Council adoption of VAT reporting measures – payments industry remains concerned appeared first on EBF.
]]>
Brussels, 30 October 2019
Financial industry against VAT fraud: joint position paper
The European Banking Federation, European Savings and Retail Banking Group, European Association of Co-operative Banks, European Payment Institutions Federation (and their respective members) strongly support the fight against VAT and other tax fraud but are deeply concerned that in current form the proposals:
- Are disproportionate in terms of scope, volume of data required and cost
- Create significant risk
- Produce uncertainty in terms of reporting obligations
- Will not practically achieve stated objectives
With the current proposal seeking to be approved at November’s ECOFIN, we would welcome your support in terms of prompting a full review of the proposals with the active involvement of the Payments Industry. The objective would be to ensure that the proposal is not approved until it has been amended into a form that
1) Is practical and workable for the industry to deliver and
2) Meets the needs of Member States in terms of effectively combatting VAT fraud.
In current form, our firm view is that the proposal achieves neither.
It is absolutely clear that Member States must have effective and efficient tools to combat VAT and tax fraud and the Payments Industry is fully prepared to work closely to ensure that this can be delivered.
We are however troubled that whilst concerns have been raised with the Commission, including recommendations on how to improve the proposals to achieve its stated objectives and to align it with the highly complex, multi-party and rapidly evolving nature of the payments industry, we believe these have been misunderstood and in some areas simply ignored.
Subscribe to the EBF Weekly + FinReg Agenda
Every Friday at noon you can receive the EBF Weekly + Financial Regulation Agenda. This agenda presents an overview of upcoming European and international meetings and conferences in financial regulation, as well as important general financial and economic events and key EBF meetings for the week ahead. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE
Subscribe to the EBF Morning Brief
The EBF Morning Brief is published Monday through Friday morning and brings you the top banking headlines, relevant announcements from the EU institutions and the latest from the EBF and its members, national banking associations in 32 countries in Europe. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE
The post Financial industry against VAT fraud: joint position paper appeared first on EBF.
]]>