EN ECB -PUB LIC 
 
 
OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK  
of 30 January 2013  
on credit transfer and direct debit transactions  
(CON/20 13/7)  
 
Introduction and legal basis  
On 17 January  2013, the European Central Bank (ECB) received a request from the Banca d’Italia for an 
opini on on a draft act of the Banca d’Italia on the application of Regulation (EU) No 260/2012 of the 
European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2012 establishing technical and business 
requirements for credit transfers and direct debits in euro1 (herei nafter the ‘draft act’). 
The ECB’s competence to deliver an opinion is based on Articles 127(4) and 282(5) of the Treaty on the 
Functioning of the European Union and the fifth  indent  of Article  2(1) of Council Decision 98/415/EC of 
29 June 1998 on the cons ultation of the European Central Bank by national authorities regarding draft 
legislative provisions2, as the draft a ct relates to payment  systems. In accordance with the first sentence of 
Article  17.5 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Central Bank , the Governing Council has adopted 
this opinion.  
 
1.  Purpose of the draft a ct 
Regulation (EU) No 260/2012 laid down the end- dates for the migration of legacy credit transfers and 
direct debits to pan -European schemes. The Banca d’Italia was designated as  the competent authorit y for 
Italy under Article 10(1) of the Regulation . It has prepared  the draft a ct in order to further clarify the 
application of the Regulation in Italy, to  exercise its right to grant waivers  under Article 16(3) to (7) and 
to include  in a single a ct all the relevant  compliance requirements under the  Regulation.   
The draft a ct includes provisions regarding: (i)  definitions ; (ii) scope , including the specification of  the 
national  payment services that fall within and outside the scope of the Regulation ; (iii) a special regime 
for the  ‘internal payments ’; (iv) waivers;  (v) interoperability;  (vi) information obligations of payment 
service providers ( PSPs ) to their customers ; (vii) the storage of direct debit mandates;  (viii) the use of 
BIC codes, for which no waiver is envisaged, and the establishment of databases for such codes ; 
(ix) optional additional services ; and (x) the obligation for PSPs to prepare ‘migration plans ’.  
  
                                                 
1  OJ L 94, 30.3.2012, p. 22.  
2  OJ L 189, 3.7.1998, p.  42. 
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2 2. Relationship between the draft act and Regulation  (EU) No 2 60/2012  
The draft a ct contains several provisions and definitions  which to varying degrees  duplicate  or reword 
provisions  in the Regulation. This type  of application results in unnecessary  duplication and could even 
create inconsistencies between national  and Union law , which  would be avoided by instead using 
references to the Regulation , wherever relevant.  In this respect , according to consistent case- law of the 
European Court of Justice, ‘ in accordance with the principle of the precedence of Community la w, … 
directly applicable measures of the [Union] institutions  … preclude the valid adoption of new national 
legislative measures to the extent to which they would be incompatible [ with such Union measures ]’3. 
Moreover, the Italian Constitutional Court has also stated that r egulations should not be reproduced, 
integrated or executed by national legislation which may differ  from , or affect  the entry into force of , 
Union measures, or partly derogate from , or repeal , the latter4. Therefore, the ECB recommend s replacing 
in the draft a ct any  definition  of a term which has already been defined by the Regulation with  a reference 
to the Regulation . 
 
3. Scope of the draft act 
3.1 Article 2(1) of t he draft act explicitly lists payment services which fall within the scope of  the 
Regulation while A rticle 2(5) state s that services  other than t hose referred to  in the pre ceding  
paragraphs are not bound to migrate. This does not appear to be  in line with the Regulation , 
pursuant to which all credit transfers and direct debits  should migrate , unless  explicitly excluded by  
the Regulation or by a waiver. Even though the list of  payment servic es in Article  2(1) and  (2) is 
not exclusive, it could still  create confusion, and t he ECB would therefore suggest deleting 
Article  2(1) and (2) and amending A rticle 2(5).  The Italian payment s ervic es that must  comply with 
the Regulation could be specified in an annex . 
3.2 With reference to the negative  scope, the draft act should specify sufficiently detailed  and reasoned 
grounds  for not apply ing the Regulation to certain transactions in Italy. Moreover, according to 
Article 1(3) of the Regulation, the Regulation nonetheless applies only to the underlying credit 
transfers or direct debts, where payment schemes are based on payment transactions by credit 
transfers or direct debits but have additional optional features or services. Furthermore, a review of 
services that fall outside the scope  could also be considered after some years.  
 
4. Internal payments  
‘Internal payments ’, as defined by Artic le 1(o) of the draft a ct, are specifically regulated by Article 3. The 
ECB understands that this Article  is meant to clarify in which circumstances PSPs  are not under an 
obligation to comply with the requirement specified by Article 5(1)(b) of the Regulati on. However, such a 
clarification is not necessary , as under  Article 5(1)(b) of the Regulation, where transactions are not 
                                                 
3  See e.g. Case 106/7 7 Italian Minister of Finance  v. Simmenthal S.p.A . [1978 ] ECR 629 , paragraph  17. 
4  See Italian Constitutional Court Case 183/1973 Frontini  v Amministrazione  delle Finanze , p. 7 . 
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3 transmitted via a retail payments system or to another PSP , such requirement does not apply. Moreover, 
the definition of ‘internal pa yments ’ in Article 1(o) of the draft Act includes , in addition to transactions 
which are not transmitted to another PSP , also transactions which are transmitted to a PSP which belongs 
to the same banking group. This widen s the range of cases in which the r equirement under Article 5(1)(b) 
of the Regulation does not have to be complied with and, hence, inappropriately restricts the scope of the 
Regulation. In the light of the above and for the sake of legal certainty , the ECB recommends dele ting 
Article 1(o) and Article 3, relating to internal payments , from the draft a ct. 
 
5. Waivers  
5.1 Article 4(1) of the draft a ct waive s for ‘RID finanziari ’ and ‘RID a import o fisso’ all the 
requirements under Article 6(2) of the Regulation until 1 February 2016. Under Art icle 16(3) of the 
Regulation, such waiver is only possible  for credit transfer or direct debit transactions with a 
cumulative market share, based on the official payment statistics published annually by the ECB, of 
less than 10% of the total number of cred it transfers or direct debit transactions. Both ‘RID 
finanziari ’ and ‘RID a import o fisso’ are defined a s ‘operational variant s of the RID interbank 
procedure ’, under Article 1(v) and (w)  of the draft act. As a waiver under Article 16(3) of the 
Regulation may only be  provided to credit transfer or direct debit transactions, the definitions of 
‘RID finanziari ’ and ‘ RID a import o fisso ’ should be amended.  
5.2 Under  Article 4(2) of the draft act a waiver is granted to payment service users that initiate or 
receive individual credit transfers or direct debits that are bundled together for transmission . In this 
respect, the ECB notes that under Article 16(5) of the Regulation ‘Member States may allow their 
competent authorities, … to waive the specific requirement to use the message formats specified in point (1)(b) of the Annex set out in Article 5(1)(d) for PSUs which initiate or receive individual 
credit transfers or direct debits that are bundled together for transmission ’. However, under 
Article  5(1)(d) of t he Regulation,  the compliance with the above-mentioned requirement is to be 
ensured  by PSPs . Against this background, and for the sake of clarity , the ECB recommends that 
the waiver should not be addressed to  payment s ervice  users.  
 
6. Additional optional services  
The ECB notes that Article 1(x) of the draft Act defines additional optional services as non -compulsory, 
whereas Article 9 seems to imply an obligation to provide such services. The ECB suggests clarifying in 
Article 9 that the provision of additi onal optional services is no t compulsory for PSPs.  The ECB notes 
that, according to r ecital 1 of the Regulation, ‘ the creation of an integrated market for electronic payments 
in euro, with no distinction between national and cross -border payments is necess ary for the proper 
functioning of the internal market ’. 
 
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4 This opinion will be published on the ECB’s website.  
 
 
Done at Frankfurt am Main, 30 January 2013.  
 
[signed]  
 
The President of the ECB  
Mario DRAGHI