Electronic Signature Licitness for Retail Trade in European Union

How to eSign a document: electronic signature licitness for Retail Trade in European Union

brussels has been the scene of intense activity as the european commission's payments package proposals have been scrutinized and voted on by econ the european parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee eurocommerce the european retail body has been leading the fight for a fair repayment structure for retailers and their customers and we met with christian versureum the eurocommerce director general to find out more about the payments package as meps prepared to ratify the econ vote good morning christian thank you for your time so what actually is the payments package well the payments package is actually a bold move uh by the european institution by starting by the european commission to establish rules in the payment market that will make payments more competitive more transparent and as a result of that cheaper for uh for consumers and and merchants uh it consists of essentially two pieces of legislation one is a a revision of a current uh you know piece of legislation and improving it making it more modern taking into account new actors in the in the payments market and also introducing a um a new piece of legislation on you know what is called the multilateral interchange fees a fairly complex concept but basically you know having the effect of bringing more competition in this fees area so actually what are these fees and what is the problem these are fees that are negotiated between banks with the card schemes sort of in between and and setting this fees up and therefore you know the fees are going up you know rather than down as they should normally do in a competition market and they help to fund uh you know fringe benefits like your air miles and and a number of other points and and vouchers uh all the kind of things that you know consumer may want but the consumer may also not want but will it make my fees more expensive we don't see that it should that the fee should be coming more expensive i think with the progress of technologies and digital payments um payments should actually be coming much cheaper but more importantly what is very important is that with this mechanism and the more competition that comes into into into the play it's the persons who get the benefits uh from all the fringe benefits that are associated with cards will be paid for by the person who enjoy those benefits so in a way the consumer will have some choice whether he will have a normal card a way to have a premium card with a number of you know air miles and a number of other advantages but this would be the consumer who will you know who will have to choose for that you know rather than these things being imposed upon retailers because the fundamental things is that at the end of the day these high costs and high fees end up you know resulting in much higher in higher prices for goods and we all pay for that whether we pay with a card or whether we pay with cash we all end up actually paying for those fees but won't you actually just keep any savings we don't see that happening and in fact in some of the geographies where changes have been introduced you see that actually retailers compete that's very much part of their dna and if they can create eliminate some inefficiencies and this is very much an inefficiency in the markets they will pass on any of the savings through cheaper prices to the consumers that's great thanks ever so much for your time christian you're welcome thank you you