EuroPay Act
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I today propose the EuroPay network to simplify movement of money and financial transfers in the EU.
EuroPay Act
Proposed by James Mizrachi-Roscoe, IAC
Preamble: Noting the need of a single European payment processor and the benefits of a unified quick payment processing system for Europe this bill aims to set up a European single payment processor calledArticle I: EuroPay
I.EuroPay shall be set up as a default European payment processor and card issuer
II.EuroPay shall be regulated and run by the ECB
III.Euro Pay shall facilitate transactions between banks and vendors as well as interbank transactions to facilitate easy and swift transactions of payments in Europe
IV.All payments on the EuroPay network must be completed within 1 hour under a normal operational environment
V.The network shall be funded by a percentage of transaction payment processing fee up to a cap and per card card issuing fee charged to banks for every physical card issued on the EuroPay network
VI.Where possible new technologies such as blockchain and cryptocurrency shall be available to use on the Europay network
VII.Any bank registered in an EU country may issue cards on the EuroPay network
VIII.Transactions on the EuroPay network shall be covered by a EuroPay Guard which shall cover refunds due to a product or service not being provided as advertised or to refund any money lost to fraudulent transactions or where other European or national laws allow for refunds to the consumer.
IX.Customers shall raise a dispute under EuroPay Guard through either a phone or online chat or portal to apply for EuroPay Guard refund. The complaint shall then be assessed within 2 days then a refund processed within 1 day if approved.
X.0.5% of any transaction shall be put into a EuroPay Guard refund fund to pay back money lost due to fraudulent transactions on a compromised account
XI.EuroPay shall have the power to chargeback transactions that fall under the EuroPay Guard protection for consumers. Should this not be possible the transaction may be refunded from theEuroPay Guard compensation fund until such a time the bank can reclaim the money off the vendor.
XII. Banks on the EuroPay network may withhold future payments on the network to a vendor to gain back money for successful disputed transactions as result of the vendor being at fault.
XIII.Any fees and transaction merchant fee caps may go up by the European ECB inflation rate or by a 55% +1 vote of the EuroPay committee.
XIV.Alternate payment processing systems may compete with EuroPay in the European Union.
XV.EuroPay shall be secured by Chip and Pin and two factor authentication with security methods updated as needed or as new technology arises that can offer better security methods.
XVI. EuroPay shall set the standards on cards designed to be used on the EuroPay network and what information must be present on the card.
XVII. The EuroPay system shall allow for creation of virtual cards on the EuroPay network.
Article 2:Governance and compliance
I.EuroPay technology standards , policies and operational procedures shall be overseen by the EuroPay committee with one representative from each member state.The committee may update any of these areas as necessary with a simple 50%+1 vote of present committee members.
II.The EuroPay headquarters shall be located in Europolis
III.All payment processing card terminals sold in the EU must accept EuroPay
IV. The European Council by a vote of 55% + 1 may sanction countries including EU member states by blocking their banks access to the EuroPay network -
I welcome this effort to streamline payment processing in our Europe. Nevertheless, I am opposed to the sanction it would effectively give to the trade of certain highly speculative securities, as well as the powerful sanctions it would allow this Council - often, as I'm sure we all know, temperamental - to pass with a simple majority. On a more procedural note, I would also prefer that it use the constitution's majority definitions - 55% - rather than its own. I therefore propose the following amendments:
AMENDMENT I
replace all mentions of 55% + 1 and/or 50% + 1 with "simple majority"
AMENDMENT II
Article I: EuroPay
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VI. Where possible new technologies such as blockchain and cryptocurrency shall be available to use on the Europay network
AMENDMENT III
Article II: Governance and Compliance
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IV. The European Council by a vote of 55% + 1 may sanction countries including EU member states by blocking their banks access to the EuroPay network
Iras Tilkanas
Councillor for the Republic of Istkalen -
I am pleased with your support of the idea and take not of your oppinion on the voting majority. Howevery there needs to be a figure in place for committee decisions so I chose to use the European council principle.I settled on the 55% + 1 for sanctions as its the criteria the European councils vote level but adds a layer of protection to require more uniformity to impose sanctions.
I am concerned by eliminating the provision that the EuroPay network has to work to implement new technologies in its systems could potentially cause it to gradually become outdated. The EuroPay network needs to move with the times to use them most relevant payment technology of the day so would disagree with ammendment II.
James Mizrachi-Roscoe, IAC commissioner
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The Union of Duxburian Dominions always welcomes more competition in payment processing. We tried this in the past with the Eurocard idea, but it didn't gain traction as councillors did not want to use a private contractor. In the time since then, payment processing has really advanced with mobile pay, direct ID card pay, Ripple X, BDAG, and now the cutting edge DAGK protocol. In order to be successful, EuroPay needs to have the flexibility to change and adapt with such massive leaps in technological sophistication. Payments, especially inter-bank, are no longer linear transmissions of money, they are massively parallel transmissions of asset-agnostic, platform-agnostic data. The idea of a consumer-facing retail bank itself is on the cusp of becoming obsolete.
Most of the proposed act does seem to account for changes in technology that would keep the network relevant. That said, I agree that the new technologies clause could be struck since it shouldn't limit itself to anything specific, plus if the network needs updating, it'll just get updated, enumerating such is unnecessary. Councillor Tilkanas holds a very outdated view of what the crypto world actually is these days, but that's a debate for some other act and some other time.
I agree with striking the sanctions clause. My government still holds sanctions as a step akin to declaring war with prejudice, and as it expects full military retaliation for any sanctions issued...it will simply never agree to issue any.
The Union of Duxburian Dominions lacks a conventional "chargeback" system since that would interfere with the infinite outbound scalability of the DAGK protocol, however, the clause allows for refunds to be issued as separate transactions so nothing needs to be amended there.
Chip and pin is far too antiquated to use, but again we don't need an amendment with how it's worded.
I do want to propose some minor amendments:
Amendment Four:
Change all references of "banks" to "financial institutions".Amendment Five:
V.The network shall be funded by a percentage of transaction payment processing fee up to a cap andper card card issuingan origination fee charged to issuing financial institutionsbanksfor everyphysical cardtradeline number issued on the EuroPay network.Physical cards aren't really a thing anymore and banks are not the only entities that may be authorized to originate cards, so these clauses should have more flexibility. It's important to note that a "tradeline number" does not include one-time use virtual privacy numbers or the user-changeable numbers on modern card accounts that don't have default card numbers baked in. A tradeline number is the overarching identifier for whatever form their core "card" takes and the fee only needs to be paid again when that overarching "card" needs to be re-issued.
Everything else about the act seems fine to me.
Wesley Greene
Councillor-General of the Duxburian Union -
I thank the right honourable councillor of the Duxburian Union and welcome his amendments. I do believe the new technology clause is flexible enough as it reads "such as" so wouldn't limit new technologies only to blockchain or crypto but just cites them as examples .
I do not believe that retail banking is obsolete or close to being so since many want the stability of an institution and protection of security features and financial protection offered by the industry. The chargeback and EuroPay Guard I believe is necessary to provide confidence in the network that would encourage people to use the system and its much better to have it organised at the Euro Pay level than through the banks or financial institutions without such a protection the system will be far too open to fraud and by setting aside a fund of 0.5% of transactions on the network we can cover transactions where money cannot be recovered from an account.
James Mizrachi-Roscoe, IAC commissioner
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The Mishar Republic welcomes this initiative as it plans to cut down processing time to a minimum. We, however, find it difficult to vote for this proposal as it seems you are planning EuroPay to become a monopoly amongst the European payment processing technology. This will in the long term hinder EuroPay's ability to compete with the latest top-notch innovations in the payment industry. For this reason, we propose the following amendments:
Amendment VI:
I. EuroPay shall be set up as adefaultprimary, but not exclusive, European payment processor and card issuer.Amendment VII:
All payment processing card terminals sold in the EU mustaccept EuroPay.be compatible with EuroPay and other major payment systems to promote inclusivity and competition.We believe these amendments will help EuroPay become a strong payment processor whilst keeping natural competition from other processing companies.
Susie Dakota
Councillor of the Mishar Republic
