The price of instant transfers should quickly drop, or even be reduced to zero. In a legislative proposal adopted today, the European Commission has decided to force banks to align the prices of these instant transfers with those of traditional transfers, which are generally free.
Five years after the emergence of this new means of payment, only 11% of all transfers in euros carried out in the EU [sont] instants, deplores the European Commission. 9 out of 10 SEPA transfers thus continue to take 1 to 3 working days to transit from one account to another. Every day, it is nearly 200 billion euros that are blocked every day during what is known as the payment floating period.
Its legislative proposal, adopted this Wednesday, October 26, therefore aims to accelerate the movement, to remove the obstacles that prevent the generalization of instant payments and the advantages they provide. Among these obstacles, the price charged by the banks: 0.94 euro per piece, on average, in France.
Issuing instant transfers is now generally chargeable and billed between 0.50 and 10 euros (0.94 euros on average). When the transfer is requested via an adviser, by telephone or in a branch, this price can go up to 14 euros.
The instant at the price of the classic transfer
In its proposal, the European Commission does not require that these instant transfers (or payments) be made free of charge. The text, however, states that its price cannot be higher than that of conventional and non-instant transfers in euros. Since the latter are generally free, at least when they are carried out via the Internet or banking applications, banks and other payment providers have little room for manoeuvre.
Instant transfer fees
What if my bank does not offer instant transfers?
Another obstacle is about to be removed. Instant transfers are currently offered in 101 of the 109 retail banks surveyed by the Banque de France’s Observatory of banking tariffs. The recalcitrant 8 will soon have no choice. The text also provides for guarantee the universal availability of instant payments in euros in banks that already offer the classic SEPA transfer, i.e. all the brands. They will have a period of 6 months after the entry into force of the text, scheduled in about twenty days, to propose incoming transfers, and 12 months to propose outgoing transfers.
Professionals: cheapest online deals for limit your bank charges
More secure transfers
Last obstacle to overcome: security. Like the traditional transfer, the instant payment is irrevocable, ie the money cannot be recalled by the bank. In the case of the SEPA transfer, however, the user has a short time to cancel his transfer, in case of doubt about the beneficiary. This is not the case with the instant transfer.
The new proposal thus makes mandatory verification of the concordance between the bank account number (IBAN) and the name of the beneficiary provided by the payer in order to alert him of a possible error or fraud before payment is made.
Bank charges: these rates which increase by 2%, 4% or even 5%