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Polish citizen Krzysztof Banasiewicz’s petition urged amendments to the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) to ease the financial challenges faced by intra-EU emigrants and enhance security for payment service providers.
Petition No. 1061/2023 argued that amending PSD2 would facilitate emigrants' use of payment services, reduce transaction costs by eliminating the need for intermediary services and enhance security for all users.
However, the European Commission determined that low switching rates mean that the cost of the amendments would outweigh the benefits.
Since the Treaty of Maastricht, EU citizens and residents of the 27 member states have been able to submit petitions to the European Parliament on any EU-related issue.
Petitions are examined by the Parliament's Committee on Petitions (PETI), which takes a decision on their admissibility and is responsible for dealing with them.
In this instance, Banasiewicz's petition called for two main changes to PSD2.
First, it proposed allowing payment service companies to change the location of a customer's account if the customer lives or works in another country. PSD2 restricts this, which Banasiewicz sees as discriminatory against emigrants.
“They use intermediary services, which can be costly and cumbersome. In his opinion, these changes would be beneficial for emigrants as well as for companies providing payment services,” the petition summary says.
Second, the petition advocated stricter security requirements for payment service providers to prevent data loss and illegal activities.
Banasiewicz believes his suggested changes would make payment services more accessible and affordable for emigrants, while improving overall security for all users.
The petition highlights the rights of EU citizens to use payment services under the same conditions as nationals of the country in which they live.
According to Eurostat data, for example, 36m EU citizens were living in a member state other than their birth country in 2022.
The outcome
The petition was declared admissible on January 30, 2024, and the European Commission provided a detailed response on June 5, 2024; this has now been summarised by the PETI committee.
The commission acknowledged the importance of financial mobility within the EU and outlined the current legislative framework under the Payment Accounts Directive (PAD).
The PAD, established in 2014, sets uniform rules for opening and using payment accounts on a cross-border basis.
Article 10 of the PAD mandates a switching service for accounts within the same member state but does not extend this service to accounts between different member states.
Article 11 facilitates cross-border account opening, but falls short of offering full account switching or number portability across borders.
The commission explored extending these services EU-wide, but concluded that the costs would outweigh the benefits due to low switching rates.
Despite this, the PAD does provide for the right of access to a basic payment account for all legally resident consumers, irrespective of their residence.
Regarding security, the commission pointed out that the PSD2 already imposes strict security requirements, including strong customer authentication (SCA), to protect users' funds and personal data from fraud and unauthorised access.
So although current EU legislation is supposed to simplify cross-border account usage, cost considerations mean there are no plans to implement a full cross-border switching service or EU-wide account number portability.
