BANKS: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO ABI AND PATTI CHIARI REGARDING INTER-BANK AGREEMENTS ON CLEARING OF CHEQUES AND VALUE DATE CONDITIONS
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
BANKS: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO ABI AND PATTI CHIARI REGARDING INTER-BANK AGREEMENTS ON CLEARING OF CHEQUES AND VALUE DATE CONDITIONS
Investigation to ascertain whether anti-competitive arrangements exist
The Italian Competition Authority, at its meeting on 10 September 2008, decided to open an investigation to determine whether the inter-bank agreements set up by ABI to regulate some payment services, such as cheques, constitute an anti-competitive arrangement. The investigation will also look into the conditions on days of float and funds availability to the end customer as defined for such services by the Patti Chiari consortium.
In the Authority’s view, since the inter-bank charges established by the agreements may affect the economic conditions offered by individual banks to their customers, both directly in terms of the price of the service and indirectly in terms of days of float and availability of the funds, any reduction in the degree of competition in the industry could lead to more onerous economic conditions for consumers.
The agreements, which were authorized by the Bank of Italy in 2003, overriding competition rules, until 31 January 2008, cover payment services with particular reference to clearing of truncated cheques, truncated bank cheques, unpaid truncated cheques, unpaid cheques returned by the clearing house and MAV (Mediante Avviso) payment advices. These are services that involve interaction between banks and other parties, whether companies or individuals, who receive or make a payment. Some of the payment services involve establishing the days of float and the timing for making funds available at an inter-bank level, which represent one component of the conditions applied to end customers. In particular, a protocol of the Patti Chiari consortium, in the case of sums transferred by cheque, gives participating banks a maximum of seven working days to make the funds available to the customer, as against the three working days stipulated for completing the transaction between banks.
The proceeding must be completed by 30 September 2009.
The following are the inter-bank commissions valid from 1 February 2008.
1) Truncated cheques – Euro 0.06;
2) Truncated bank cheques – Euro 0.02;
3) Unpaid truncated cheques and handling of other requests – Euro 0.97;
4) Unpaid cheques returned by clearing house – Euro 3.62;
5) MAV payment advices – Euro 0.61.
Rome, 12 September 2008