History of a six-year debate on Multilateral Interchange Fee for direct debit

Abstract

This paper relates what has happened in the six-year debate about the need for a Multilateral Interchange Fee for the SEPA direct debits scheme, which will be joined by national schemes for direct debit in February 2014. All banks and companies in the EU are now in the process of adapting their systems — the result will be a pan-European direct debit scheme, which will also be an infrastructure available for new kinds of payment through mobile or internet.