Payment Services Directive – New European directive for payment services
The new regulations – known as the Payment Services Directive (PSD) - is to make cross-border payments – mainly money transfers, direct debits and card payments – within Europe as easy, efficient and secure as domestic payments within member states.
From 1 November 2009, all banks in Europe must execute payments identically for every European individual and every European company. This applies to all payment transactions in the European Economic Area (EEA), so all member states of the European Union plus Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland. Click here for all countries and currencies.
Important changes for you as a business person:
- The refund right period for direct debit entries will be extended to eight weeks (from 30 days to 56 days). This means that, for amounts debited from 1 November 2009, you will have eight weeks to have a payment reversed.
- Debit debits/collectors can be faced with reverse entries for nearly a month longer than in the past. Exceptions are one-off direct debit mandates and direct debits for lotteries; the term for reversing these entries will remain unchanged. The term for business direct debits will remain five days. (Overview Direct debit and refund right period Matrix can be found here)
More information on the rules and the refund right period you can find here in General Conditions Direct Debit (for Collectors) (in Dutch only)
- Value dating of incoming payments
As from 1 November 2009, incoming payments that meet the PSD conditions will be credited to your account with the same value date as the date on which the receiving bank receives the money.
- Charges for outgoing foreign payments
As from 1 November 2009, it will no longer be possible to charge all costs for executing outgoing foreign payments to the payee (cost category BEN – Beneficiary). Electronic payments that meet the PSD conditions (see box), bearing the BEN cost category, will be automatically converted to cost category SHA (Shared). This means that the costs for executing payment will be charged by the debit bank to the payer, and costs for processing the payment received will be charged by the credit bank to the payee. Settlement of costs via cost category OUR (all costs charged to the issuer) will remain unchanged.
- Introduction of European direct debit (SEPA Direct Debit)
As from 1 November 2010, all European banks will accept direct debit orders from throughout Europe that are charged to their customers’ accounts, both for individuals and for businesses. This presents opportunities in particular to businesses active in Europe, as it will make cross-border direct debits possible.
More information