Vol. 548 No. 2
209 Mr. Dennehy asked the Minister for Finance if he will discuss with his colleagues in the Council of Ministers, the problem whereby a person seeking to send a cheque from one eurozone country to another incurs greater charges than they do when undertaking a similar transaction in their own country; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4364/02]
The issue of affordable methods of cross-border payment has recently been addressed at European level. An EU regulation on cross-border transfers, agreed by the Council of Ministers and by the European Parliament last December, has established the principle that charges levied by an institution in respect of cross-border consumer payments in euro will be the same as the charges levied by the same institution for corresponding domestic payments. Although this regulation does not apply to cheques, it will ensure that costs of other convenient methods of cross-border payments are reduced. To be specific, the regulation provides that: with effect from 1 July 2002, charges for electronic payments in euro, such as cash withdrawals using an ATM card or card payments, shall be the same at both the domestic and cross-border level; and with effect from 1 July 2003, there shall be a similar equalisation of charges at domestic and cross-border level in the case of other transfers such as credit transfers.
The regulation will initially apply to cross-border payments in euro up to €12,500 and from 1 January 2006, this limit will be increased to €50,000. I should point out that the volume of cross-border payments is relatively small; they represent only about 1% of all non cash transactions.
As far as cheques are concerned, there is no central cheque clearing system within the euro area. Moreover these are not a popular means of payment in many eurozone countries. Cheques accordingly entail higher processing costs. For these reasons a person receiving a cross border cheque will likely incur greater charges than they do when doing a similar transaction in their own country. Electronic based transactions have become increasingly popular with consumers and businesses alike. Paper based transactions, such as cheques, have declined accordingly and this decline is expected to continue in the future.
