Online banking: Commission wants banks to make ‘direct transfers’

The Banks In the eurozone it will be obliged to offer the possibility of immediate implementation of transfers 24 hours a day, according to a draft proposal to be presented by the European Commission.

Transfers and card payments today often take days to complete, but the EU wants to update transactions so that money can be transferred from one account to another in seconds, any day and at any time.

The proposed rules are part of a broader policy to “encourage the development of competitive payment solutions based on the European domestic and global market”.

Direct Payments Infrastructure (IP) already exists in the Eurozone, but its adoption is still limited. As the commission notes, in 2021, only 11% of bank requests were executed as IP.

Payment service providers that offer money transfer in Euros will be required to provide a service of sending and receiving IP addresses in Euros. The requirement will apply 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” said the draft regulation obtained by Reuters.

The proposal is expected to be formally presented on Wednesday and could be amended upon consideration by the European Parliament and its member states.

However, the plan states that providers within the eurozone will have six months from triggering the regulation to start accepting direct payments, a one-year window for sending direct payments.

A longer window will be given to banks outside the Eurozone.

Finally, the proposal states that the cost of cross-border direct execution orders cannot be greater than the cost of traditional cross-border transfers.