Green Paper Towards an integrated European market for card, internet and mobile payments

The European Commission has launched a consultation for a secure and transparent integrated payments environment throughout the EU.

The Green Paper assesses the current landscape of card, internet and mobile payments in Europe, identifies the gaps between the current situation and the vision of a fully integrated payments market and the barriers which have created these gaps. The objective of the Green Paper is to launch a broad-scale consultation process with stakeholders to validate or contribute to the Commission’s analysis and to help identify the right way to improve market integration. 

The document includes facts and figures showing how the European citizens shopping and paying way is radically changing:

-One in three European citizens used online banking in 2009. Studies indicate that by 2020, two out of three EU citizens may use online banking.

-The number of online shoppers in Europe is forecast to increase from 141 to 190 million between 2009 and 2014 with the average spent by each buyer increasing from EUR 500 to EUR 600/year

-Around 726 million payment (credit and debit) cards were used in the EU in 2009. This represents an average of almost 1.5 cards per citizen. The average spending per card amounted to more than EUR 2 000/year.

The deadline for submitting contributions to the consultation is 11 April 2012.

Download the consultation

Prices for voice, SMS and data roaming to be cut down to level of national tariffs by 2014

A new EU roaming regulation is expected to be announced this Wednesday 6 July to resume the fight against high mobile phone prices.

The European Commission will propose to cap voice, SMS and data roaming at levels similar to national tariffs by 2014, as well as end the price gap between national and cross-border mobile services.

The proposed rules will introduce innovative ways to structurally reform the supply of mobile services, proposes to slash the wholesale prices that operators pay to use each other's networks, implement measures to enable new "virtual" operators to enter the market, and much more.

Before being applied, the regulation will have to pass the scrutiny of the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers.

More information
Download the legal text of the EU roaming proposal