Changes in payment card schemes will have a very direct impact on merchants. European rules of interoperability will make it possible to boost card acceptance while increasing competition between card schemes.
With European rules for card interoperability, merchants will have a wider choice as regards the acquiring banks they select to process their card transactions. They will also benefit from the increased cost-efficiency resulting from the economies of scale achieved by providers of handling services and increasingly standardised accepting terminals.
The widespread use throughout the SEPA area of EMV chip cards will strengthen card payment security by increasing the number of card payments that require a PIN code. Merchants will therefore enjoy the same level of security for payments initiated by European cardholders as for French cardholders. This should lower the overall level of fraud.
Lastly, the implementation of the framework of interoperability for card schemes will allow cardholders to use their cards more extensively.
In France, “CB” four-party payment cards already enable cross-border transactions for the most part and comply with EMV technical standards. Migration to SEPA-compliant payment cards will therefore involve no discernible changes for cardholders and should also be transparent for most of the merchants that will not need to replace their terminals.