madam president this directive responds to the growing importance of electronic commerce and of electronic money and the need for a clear legislative framework
its aim is to facilitate the use of electronic money for on-line payments accounts pre-paid mobile phone accounts top-up travel cards and gift vouchers
e-money is no different from other forms of money in that it stores monetary value and provides a convenient means of exchange
but unlike account-based payment instruments such as credit and debit cards it works as a pre-paid bearer instrument
it is used to cover payments usually of relatively small amounts to undertakings other than the user thus differentiating it from single purpose pre-paid cards like telephone cards
there is no need of a bank account in order to use e-money so it is particularly relevant to those in society who do not or cannot have bank accounts
it was all of eight years ago that a benjamin cohen in his article electronic money new day or false dawn
stated that the era of electronic money will soon be upon us
sadly this prediction was both over-optimistic and premature for europe at least
electronic money is still far from delivering in europe the full benefits which were expected when the first e-money directive was adopted in two thousand and one
probably this was because of the high initial capital requirement and other over-cautious restrictions
the number of e-money institutions differs remarkably from one member state to another
for example the czech republic has over forty emis or electronic money institutes while france and germany between them have a grand total of twelve
in fact two german emis were even constrained to move to the uk jurisdiction because of major differences in regulation even under this directive
in august two thousand and seven two years ago outstanding electronic money was only eur one billion and that compares with eur six hundred billion of cash in circulation
so clearly e-money has a long way to go to become a serious alternative to cash
however it is growing significantly despite the restrictions and this new directive should enable new innovative and secure electronic money services to operate to provide market access possibilities for new players and to foster real and effective competition between market participants
new and smaller operators will have an opportunity to enter the market as the amount of initial capital needed will be reduced from eur one million to eur three hundred and fifty zero
the committee on economic and monetary affairs would certainly have preferred less
providers can extend the outlets where e-payments can be made for example the customer paying for his metro ticket with e-money could also purchase a coffee a newspaper or a bunch of flowers at the station kiosk as is already and very successfully the case in hong kong for example
we have been rushed through the legislative process for a first-reading agreement in order to get this measure enacted before the european elections
i thank most warmly ivo and melanie from the economic committee staff the socialist and liberal shadows mr pittella and mrs raeva the commission services and the czech presidency notably tomáš trnka and his team for their very positive cooperation
none of us achieved all we would have wished but i believe we will have made a significant step forward and i would very much welcome parliament's support for this project
