Green light to payment by ATM o credit card also below the threshold of the euro 5. It will be possible thanks to an amendment to the Stability Law presented by Pd deputy Sergio Boccadutri, aimed at allowing card payments even for small amounts, such as those needed for newspapers and coffee which can cost even less than one euro.
As a result, merchants and professionals will be obliged to accept credit and debit card payments for such amounts. Penalty administrative and pecuniary sanctions. The provision is introduced in the context of the fight against cash, after the government raised the same limit for cash payments to 3 euros.
"In order to promote the execution of payment transactions based on debit or credit cards, even for payments of limited amounts", reads the amendment signed Sergio Boccadutri, for transactions "whose amount is less than five euros" the cost of the service "cannot be higher than the costs that the same beneficiary would have incurred for accepting similar cash payments".
Translated, interchange fees must not be such as to penalize those receiving electronic payments. “It will be possible to use digital payments even for small sums – explains Boccadutri, innovation manager of the Democratic Party -: I think it is a question of freedom. We want citizens to be free to choose how to pay, in any situation".
The ceiling for interchange fees on transactions under €5 is set at 0,25% of the value of the transaction by credit card and 0,15% if by debit card: in practice it is 7,5 thousandths of a euro i.e. almost zero. Limits that will apply "for any other transaction not distinguishable as a debit or credit card transaction by the payment card scheme". Merchants and professionals will be obliged to accept payments made by credit card, as well as by debit card. The amendment signed by Boccaduri introduces for the first time administrative and financial sanctions for those who do not comply.
Payment service providers and credit card scheme managers will have until 2016st April XNUMX to define the rules necessary to reduce commissions for micro-payments. In the event of "missing or ineffective definition and application, the maximum value of the commissions cannot exceed 7 thousandths of a euro for each transaction based on a debit card and one cent of a euro for each transaction based on a credit card".
