Speech McCreevy: Improving the competitiveness of European card-based payments

18 September 2007

Speaking at the EFMA Cards and Payment Conference in Paris, Commissioner McCreevy announced the formal adoption and publication of the Payment Services Directive for November. He also announced the publication of a Communication setting out the Commission’s concerns with regard to SEPA migration, cards, additional optional services and SEPA governance at the end of 2007.

SEPA migration will starts in January 2008 and ends in 2010. A point of concern to the Commissioner is the issue of national debit cards. As the SEPA Cards Framework describes three options for attaining SEPA compliance there is “a justifiable concern that this increased functionality is likely to come at the cost of increased market concentration and a more expensive payment card for the merchant”, McCreevy said. “Furthermore, the existence of proprietary standards may reduce competition in payments card processing.”

“It is a public secret that DG Competition is currently preparing two major decisions on card schemes with a review of a third scheme next year”, the McCreevy stated.

With regard to Additional Optional Services McCreevy said that “the risk is that the provision of these services may lead to new, national fragmentation and the economies of scale and the massive productivity gains that could be achieved by their development at EU level may not be attained.”

Full speech

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