New legislation: prohibition on charges for certain payment methods

On 13.01.2018, the law implementing the Second Payment Services Directive comes into force. § 270a BGB is newly introduced. This is of particular interest to online merchants.

To date, it has been statutorily regulated that in consumer contracts, at least one common and reasonable free payment option must be available to the consumer. Within a certain scope, additional charges for further payment methods were permissible. The new legislation will now change this.

The new regulation

§ 270a BGB reads as follows:

"An agreement by which the debtor is obliged to pay a charge for the use of a SEPA direct debit, a SEPA corporate direct debit, a SEPA transfer or a payment card is void. Sentence 1 applies to the use of payment cards only in payment transactions with consumers if Chapter II of Regulation (EU) 2015/751 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2015 on interchange fees for card-based payment transactions (OJ L 123 of 19.5.2015, p. 1) is applicable to these."

This means that – regardless of whether a consumer is involved or not – no surcharges may be charged for a payment transaction using SEPA direct debit, SEPA corporate direct debit or SEPA transfer.

In payment transactions with consumers, the use of debit and credit cards in the so-called four-party card payment scheme, in particular the common credit cards VISA and Mastercard, must also be free of charge. Conversely, cards in the so-called three-party card payment scheme, such as American Express, are not covered by the regulation.

Conclusion

From 13.01.2018, merchants are no longer permitted to charge separate fees to consumers for certain card payments, transfers and direct debits.