European Union (Interchange Fees for Card-based Payment Transactions) Regulations 2015

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Citation: IR SI 550/2015
• Year: 2015

Notice of the making of this Statutory Instrument was published in

“Iris Oifigiúil” of 11th December, 2015.

I, MICHAEL NOONAN, Minister for Finance, in exercise of the powers conferred on me by section 3 of the European Communities Act 1972 (No. 27 of 1972) and for the purpose of giving full effect to Regulation (EU) No. 751/2015 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 20151 , hereby make the following regulations:

Citation and construction

1. (1) These Regulations may be cited as the European Union (Interchange Fees for Card-based Payment Transactions) Regulations 2015.

(2) These Regulations shall come into operation on 9 December 2015.

Interpretation

2. (1) In these Regulations-

“Bank” means the Central Bank of Ireland;

“Interchange Regulation” means Regulation (EU) No. 751/2015 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2015 laying down uniform technical and business requirements for card-based payment transactions carried out within the Union, where both the payers payment service provider and the payees payment service provider are located therein;

“microenterprise” shall be construed in accordance with paragraph (2).

(2) For the purposes of these Regulations, a payee shall be regarded as a microenterprise if the payee falls within paragraph (b) of the definition of “consumer” in section 57BA of the Central Bank Act 1942 (No. 22 of 1942).

(3) A word or expression that is used in the Interchange Regulation and is also used in these Regulations has, unless the context otherwise requires, the same meaning in these Regulations as it has in the Interchange Regulation.

Purpose of these Regulations

3. The purpose of these Regulations is to supplement the Interchange Regulation as regards its application to the State.

Scope of these Regulations

4. (1) If the requirement in paragraph (2) is fulfilled, a three party payment card scheme that licenses other payment service providers for the issuance of card-based payment instruments or the acquiring of card-based payment transactions, or both, or issues card-based payment instruments with a co-branding partner or through an agent, shall, in relation to domestic payment transactions, be exempt from the obligations under Chapter II of the Interchange Regulation until 9 December 2016.

(2) The requirement mentioned in paragraph (1) is that the card-based payment transactions under the three party payment card scheme referred to in that paragraph do not exceed on a yearly basis 3% of the value of all card-based payment transactions made in the State.

Interchange fee limits for domestic debit card transactions

5. Payment service providers shall not offer or request a weighted average interchange fee of more than the equivalent of 0.10% of the annual average transaction value of all domestic debit card transactions within each payment card scheme.

Competent authority for purposes of...