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New rules on the charging of commissions on payment apps

Legal Alert no. 125 - Law 53/2020, of 26, August

On August, 26 2020, Law 53/2020 (the “Law”) was published in the official public gazette, establishing rules for the protection of consumers of financial services in relation to bank commissioning and to the use of payment applications operated by third parties, amending Decree-Law 3/2010 of January, 5 ("DL 3/2010").

DL 3/2010 establishes the prohibition of collecting charges for the provision of payment services and for carrying out operations at ATMs.

According to the amendments introduced by the Law, the referred DL now limits the charging of commissions by payment service providers (“PSPs”) for operations of withdrawal of funds, payments of services, or credit transfers, when carried out in or through payment applications operated by third parties.


“Third-party operated payment application" means any application that enables a user, account holder or payment cardholder, to execute and authenticate payment transactions, including:
a) The immediate transfer of funds deposited in the account or payment card to a payee that adhered to the same solution;
b) The immediate receipt of funds transferred to an account or payment card by a payer that adhered to the same solution;
c) The payments provision on a website or at a merchant store adhering to the same solution;
d) The issuing of virtual cards for secure purchases on websites and the issuing of codes for cash withdrawals, by the user or by an authorized person, at ATMs within the “Multibanco” network (bank services network in Portugal).
This definition corresponds to an adaptation of Article 2(21) of Regulation 2015/751 on interchange fees for card-based payment transactions.

To regulate this matter, Law 53/2020 added a provision to DL 3/2010 concerning the charging of commissions on payment applications operated by third parties. Under this new provision, PSPs are now forbidden to charge commissions for withdrawal of funds, payments of services, or credit transfers, when carried out in or through payment applications operated by third parties, if such operations to not exceed the following limits::
a) 30 euros per transaction; or
(b) 150 euros transferred through the application over one month; or
c) 25 transfers made within a month.

In case transactions exceed the above limits, PSPs may not charge the consumer a commission amount above:
a) 0,2 % on the transaction value, for debit card transactions; and
(b) 0,3 % on the transaction value for credit card transactions.

Finally, it is also established the obligation of PSPs to ensure that commissions charged for identical operations in their payment applications or those operated by third parties are proportional, non-discriminatory and shall not inhibit access, more than what is necessary, to prevent specific risks and to safeguard the financial and operational stability of payment services.

The law comes into force on 1 January 2021.

This legal alert does not constitute legal advice or exempt its reader from fully reading the Law in question, available here.

 

For more information about this topic, please contact:

Miguel Cordeiro

+351 219 245 010

mcordeiro@ctsu.pt

 

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