16 February 2017

EBA expresses dissent over the EU Commission proposed amendments to technical standards under the IFR

The EBA issued an Opinion to the European Commission, expressing dissent over some of the proposed amendments to its final draft Regulatory Technical Standard on the separation of payment card schemes and processing entities under the Interchange Fee Regulation.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) clarified that there is no clear requirement for a legal and structural separation between card schemes and processing entities.

In particular, the EBA agrees with three of the Commission's proposals, albeit in modified form, but disagrees with the other three, on the grounds that they appear to assume that card schemes and processing entities are, or should be treated as if they were legally and structurally separated. 

As this is not a legal requirement imposed in the IFR, the EBA believes that several of these  proposals might result in a disproportionate, difficult, and/or ambiguous application of the RTS for those payment card schemes and processing entities that are not legally separated, or that are organised in separate undertakings within the same group.

Press release

Full opinion

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