The Parliament voted that charges for transactions in euros within the EU should be the same across borders as within a single Member State. The Commission agrees with the Parliament’s three amendments.
The Parliament adopted the Commission draft Regulation in its first reading with three main changes:
- It called for a short delay in the application of the regulation (from 1 January to 1 March 2002), in order to allow banks to concentrate on the introduction of the euro coins and notes;
- It excluded cheques from the equal charges principle of the regulation; cheques will still be subject to the information requirements of the regulation;
- Financial institutions only have to inform their customers of their International Bank Account Number (IBAN) and Bank Identification Code (BIC) “if required” as some payment systems are not bank systems and therefore have no IBAN or BIC.