State of play: pre-legislative phase.
Level 1
Commission
- 3 April 2020, the Commission has launched a consultation on retail payments strategy for the EU which closed on June 26 2020.
- 24 September 2020, the Commission has published a Retail Payments Strategy as part of the Digital Finance Strategy for the EU.
- 25 March 2021, the Commission published a targeted consultation on Instant payments.
Next steps
- The Commission is aiming for the full uptake of instant payments in the EU by end-2021 depending on advances in three levels, namely rules, end-user solutions and infrastructures.
- November 2020, the Commission will assess whether these numbers are satisfactory and, on that basis, decide whether it is appropriate to propose legislation requiring payment service providers’ adherence to the SCT Inst. Scheme by the end of 2021. Such a proposal, if decided, would lay down the criteria for determining which payment service providers should be subject to compulsary participation.
- The Commission will assess whether it would be appropriate to require adherence by relevant stakeholders to all, or a subset of the additional functionalities of SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst.), which could also include any future standards for QR-codes.
