Guidelines on standardised fee terminology for payment accounts in the EU (EBA/GL/2015/01)

Status of these guidelines

Subject matter and scope of application

Implementation

Guideline 1: Identifying services to be considered for the provisional lists

1.1. With regard to the criterion of ‘services most commonly used by consumers in relation to their payment account’ as referred to in point (a) of Article 3(2) of Directive 2014/92/EU, the factors below should be considered, to the extent deemed necessary to determine the list:

• a. competent authorities should consider the general population of consumers, when assessing the level of diffusion of services;
• b. competent authorities should consider the relative prevalence of the services in terms of how often they constitute a feature of payment accounts;
• c. competent authorities should consider how often the services in question are used, by taking into account, where possible, the proportion of consumers using the service along with the number of times the service is used;
• d. competent authorities should include the provision of the account itself as a service.

1.2. With regard to the criterion of ‘services that generate the highest cost for consumers, both overall as well as per unit’ as referred to in point (b) of Article 3(2) of Directive 2014/92/EU, the factors below should be considered, to the extent deemed necessary to determine the list:

• a. when considering fees overall as well as per unit, competent authorities should not only consider services that fulfil both of those criteria simultaneously, but also services that generate the highest cost for consumers either overall or per unit;
• b. competent authorities should consider fees cumulatively when determining the unit costs or overall costs of services that might attract different types of fees;
• c. in ascertaining which are the most representative services, competent authorities should consider the costs that are incurred, or could be incurred, by consumers on an annual basis for the use of the service, preferably based on the most recent data available covering a 12 month period.

Guideline 2: Exercising judgement when establishing the provisional lists

2.1. When establishing the provisional list, competent authorities should give priority to those services that satisfy both criteria (i.e. in area C of Figure 1).

2.2. In a second step, since the criteria are not strictly cumulative, competent authorities should also consider services that only satisfy one of the criteria (i.e. in areas A or B) for inclusion in the provisional list. Figure 1 - Services and criteria