§8.3.3 Eligible costs justifying a fee for the use of means of payment

Only fees which are directly charged to the trader for the use of a means of payment should be considered as the ‘cost’ of that means of payment within the meaning of Article 19. The costs to the trader that can legitimately be taken into account to justify fees to consumers are the MSC and the transaction or overhead fees paid to intermediaries for some or all of the merchant services usually provided by acquirer banks. In these cases the intermediary typically deals with the acquirer bank and acts as a point of contact for retailers, charging a mark-up on the acquirer bank’s fees for the relevant services. It is for the trader to decide whether to sub-contract, for instance, the provision of the following items/services: — acquiring and maintaining point-of-sale equipment like chip-and-pin devices; — fraud monitoring and maintaining compliance with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) to help prevent fraud, as required by all the major card networks; — developing and running infrastructure to handle card payments, such as payment functionality for websites or call centres; and — staff training. The costs of payment equipment, fraud detection and management (or similar) services should be regarded instead as general costs of running a business, regardless of whether they are incurred by the trader directly or outsourced. If outsourced, they are generally charged for separately from the main ‘overhead fees’ or MSC. The processing of payments and handling cash involves staff costs that are difficult to quantify as they are often included in overall administrative costs. The costs deriving from fraud and risk management vary significantly between sectors and traders but are generally considered to be falling thanks to the introduction of new electronic payment technologies. Since these costs are inherent to the respective business activity (even where incurred to ensure regulatory compliance), they should also remain excluded from the notion of ‘cost in respect of the use of a given means of payment’ under Article 19 and should be regarded instead as part of the general cost of running a business. This argument is particularly valid for businesses that sell goods or provide services online only and that only accept electronic means of payment. For such businesses, the staff costs incurred in processing an electronic payment and costs deriving from fraud or risk management are fundamental elements of their very business model. Furthermore, from a more practical viewpoint, including in the notion of ‘cost’ all possible elements that may be associated even indirectly with a means of payment, would make Article 19 difficult to enforce and would prevent it from having any practical effect (‘effet utile’) . This is true given that, for instance, very little information is publicly available about administrative costs and that the exact cost of equipment and/or installation can only be calculated by spreading the amount over an unknown number of transactions. Therefore, traders should recoup such costs via the price of their goods or services rather than by charging consumers additional fees in respect of the use of a means of payment.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07