The confrontation between the Bank of Italy and Adusbef, not devoid of polemical verve, on the costs of maintaining bank current accounts recurs every time the numbers of new surveys are disclosed. In recent days, after the Bank of Italy has communicated that, according to its calculations, the average costs of managing a bank current account, down by a few percentage points compared to the previous year, are around 100 euros per year, Adusbef has contrasted the data of his own evidence, arguing that that amount would be at least three times lower than the actual situation, instead of addressing the issue of banking services prices ex post, I would like to try to argue that the bank current account is in many ways outdated in its dual capacity as a relationship for the possession of financial wealth in liquid form and half for making use of the collection and payment services which are regulated through it.
In my opinion, its progressive replacement with products expressly intended for one or another function may result in positive effects for the consumer and for the banks, in terms of efficiency and transparency. I believe that everyone can see how the first objective is being pursued with ever greater determination by banks through the offer of the deposit account, which, from their point of view, gives greater stability to funding, but which imposes, for the benefit of the customer, a more convenient remuneration, with clearer management rules. We can, without hesitation, recognize that the deposit account is now a mature product, through which price competition between banks takes place according to the duration of the deposits. Much less known are the methods by which to resolve the issue of payment services, to the benefit of both counterparties.
Yet the tools are there and the public policies aimed at encouraging their use are concretely taking shape at both national and European level. I am referring to the payment account, as an instrument intended exclusively for the management of payment transactions. Still not widespread in Italy, it has some prerogatives that should be summarized:
A) the payment account can be offered by banks and payment institutions, authorized by the Bank of Italy pursuant to Community Directive 2007/64CE;
B) its juridical configuration, through the contract that governs it, has characteristics of robustness, like any other banking contract;
C) it does not produce debit interest (since it is not an instrument for granting credit) or creditors (since the stocks are destined for rapid execution payment transactions);
D) the operations that can be performed are all those typical of collection and payment (transfers, direct debits, Mav,Rav,F24, account transfers, etc), without currency effects, availability and transaction registration costs;
E) the obligations of the SEPA regulation on the standardization of the formats of credit transfers and direct debits starting from 2014, fully insert these accounts in the European payments network;
F) their pricing is expressly indicated in the contract, as the conditions are subject to the legislation on transparency;
G) their exemption from stamp duty, which instead continues to weigh on bank current accounts, was (April 2013) expressly established by the Revenue Agency;
H) the payment account lends itself to the diffusion of automatic and digitized processes, easy to use for both corporate and retail customers; in addition to the banks, some payment institutions are already members of the CBI Consortium (Corporate Banking Interbancario);
I) the movement of payment accounts can be obtained through cards from international circuits, through internal payment circuits set up for this purpose, or through internet banking platforms and smartphones, to also access e-commerce; top-ups can take place both online and through appointed networks;
J) their placement can easily take place remotely with techniques for opening the relationship based on the release of a digital signature or other methods of signature, such as the advanced electronic one, recently recognized also in our legal system, with characteristics of absolute probative robustness.
To these advantageous economic/functional aspects has recently been added (May 2013) the proposal for a European Directive, which intends to prescribe to all the countries of the Union the obligation to offer, by authorized institutions, the basic payment account , reinforcing the transparency and portability requirements and specifying the basic characteristics, for dissemination among users with less contractual power. In fact, we read in said Directive the objective of intermediating (or re-intermediating) that part of the population which has been progressively excluded from banking services, thanks to the economic crisis and the more selective policies of the banks. This concern extends to the communities of emigrants who find the process of financial inclusion particularly difficult, as an essential part of the process of integration in the destination countries.
European consumers who do not have (or cannot access) a current account should be able to open a basic payment account, regardless of their financial situation and where they reside in the European Union (EU). The Commission recommends that, in each Member State, at least one payment service provider offers this service, carrying out all the operations necessary for opening, managing and closing a payment account and allowing it to diversify and withdraw cash, as well as to carry out payment transactions through bank transfers or transfers of funds, also by means of a payment card (without providing for an overdraft).
This approach opens up market expansion with ample opportunity for intermediaries to set mass policies. We must, however, ask ourselves what might be the factors of resistance to the massive introduction of the payment account, starting from the supply side. Undoubtedly, from this point of view, the immediate impacts on the income statement of Italian banks must be considered, which today count on a significant revenue stream deriving from the pricing of traditional current accounts. Starting from the aforementioned average cost of 100 euros before tax, as calculated by the Bank of Italy, and considering that bank current accounts total no less than 35 million (net of postal ones), we have revenues equal to 3,5 billion euros per year (2,2 billion net of stamp duties, equal to 34 euros per year for each account, and therefore equal to approximately one third of the total costs of maintenance), to which the system, even partially , is hardly willing to give up.
Among the balancing components of this effect, there are instead to be considered both those of a gradual and incomplete transition, even when fully operational, to this new form of contract (current accounts will not be able to completely disappear), but above all the huge advantages that would be achieved on the cost side, given the drive towards automation that this tool allows in the methods of carrying out the myriad transactions, even of limited amounts, which are carried out every day (for our country, it is estimated that the annual number of wire transfers and direct debits is no less than 1,3 billion).
The writer is of the opinion that in the medium term the process would be advantageous for the banks, above all on the condition of immediately setting up coherent price policies in the placement of the accounts in question. Instead, we are witnessing commercial approaches of "debasement" of conditions, which cannot favor an orderly transition to this innovation. Starting again from the average cost of 100 euros for a bank current account, a 4/5-fold reduction in this price for maintaining a payment account would represent a significant reduction in the offer conditions, to which would be added the benefits in terms of commission reduction for Sepa transfers and direct debits, without the risk for the banks of below cost selling. On the contrary, and therefore without making the actual added value inherent in the payment account perceived, many banks tend, in this phase, on the one hand to create confusion about its multifunctional characteristics, making use of generic and reductive expressions such as card-account or prepaid, on the other hand they aim to associate policies of self-cannibalization of the product, often offered in the form of a debit card, at ridiculously low prices, if not even free.
Basically, we do not believe that this is the right way to broaden the offer of payment accounts on the market, favoring their use. In other words, the economic margins existing in current accounts should be used with greater foresight to increase the diffusion of payment accounts. As for demand, customers should make better use of both the plurality of payment account functions and the security features, to which, in addition to technological safeguards, the possibility of configuring the access to the various platforms on the basis of conscious choices of the inherent risks by users.
In conclusion, the payment account can represent a substantial innovation in the process of modernizing the relationship between banks and customers that can no longer be deferred, to the point of supporting, referring to the futurist poet FT Marinetti who wanted to "kill the moonlight", the possibility even "killing" the current account. We who are more moderate believe that it would be enough to proclaim its euthanasia, causing the rapid growth of payment institutions and those electronic payments which, according to data published for the first time by the European Central Bank, are destined to have a future, with the gradual of the various national peculiarities, among which our obsolete postal payment slips and bank receipts stand out. In short, we would like a more effective competition between old and new market players in relation to innovative payment instruments.
