Merchants welcome the ‘better off’ principle for the Digital Euro fee

Following yesterday’s negotiations in the European Parliament, we are pleased to see the S&D group’s support for the principle that merchants must be ‘better off’ regarding the Digital Euro fee (compensation) model, as shown in their press statement.

This is what the Merchant Payments Coalition has argued for since September last year. 

The position of the Council and some political groups on merchants being ‘no worse off’ does not reflect the unique nature of the Digital Euro as public money with mandatory acceptance, and the absence of credit risk for the private banks.

At the same time, merchants need the Digital Euro fee to be capped at a flat 4ct fee for transactions of 40 euro and above.

We call on the technical discussions to cement the principle of ‘better off’ in the final text of the Regulation and look forward to working with the political groups to complete the negotiations.