Directive 2007/64/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (repealed)Show full title

Article 4 Definitions

For the purposes of this Directive, the following definitions shall apply:

1.

‘home Member State’ means either of the following:

(i)

the Member State in which the registered office of the payment service provider is situated; or

(ii)

if the payment service provider has, under its national law, no registered office, the Member State in which its head office is situated;

2.

‘host Member State’ means the Member State other than the home Member State in which a payment service provider has an agent or a branch or provides payment services;

3.

‘payment service’ means any business activity listed in the Annex;

4.

‘payment institution’ means a legal person that has been granted authorisation in accordance with Article 10 to provide and execute payment services throughout the Community;

5.

‘payment transaction’ means an act, initiated by the payer or by the payee, of placing, transferring or withdrawing funds, irrespective of any underlying obligations between the payer and the payee;

6.

‘payment system’ means a funds transfer system with formal and standardised arrangements and common rules for the processing, clearing and/or settlement of payment transactions;

7.

‘payer’ means a natural or legal person who holds a payment account and allows a payment order from that payment account, or, where there is no payment account, a natural or legal person who gives a payment order;

8.

‘payee’ means a natural or legal person who is the intended recipient of funds which have been the subject of a payment transaction;

9.

‘payment service provider’ means bodies referred to in Article 1(1) and legal and natural persons benefiting from the waiver under Article 26;

10.

‘payment service user’ means a natural or legal person making use of a payment service in the capacity of either payer or payee, or both;

11.

‘consumer’ means a natural person who, in payment service contracts covered by this Directive, is acting for purposes other than his trade, business or profession;

12.

‘framework contract’ means a payment service contract which governs the future execution of individual and successive payment transactions and which may contain the obligation and conditions for setting up a payment account;

13.

‘money remittance’ means a payment service where funds are received from a payer, without any payment accounts being created in the name of the payer or the payee, for the sole purpose of transferring a corresponding amount to a payee or to another payment service provider acting on behalf of the payee, and/or where such funds are received on behalf of and made available to the payee;

14.

‘payment account’ means an account held in the name of one or more payment service users which is used for the execution of payment transactions;

15.

‘funds’ means banknotes and coins, scriptural money and electronic money as defined in Article 1(3)(b) of Directive 2000/46/EC;

16.

‘payment order’ means any instruction by a payer or payee to his payment service provider requesting the execution of a payment transaction;

17.

‘value date’ means a reference time used by a payment service provider for the calculation of interest on the funds debited from or credited to a payment account;

18.

‘reference exchange rate’ means the exchange rate which is used as the basis to calculate any currency exchange and which is made available by the payment service provider or comes from a publicly available source;

19.

‘authentication’ means a procedure which allows the payment service provider to verify the use of a specific payment instrument, including its personalised security features;

20.

‘reference interest rate’ means the interest rate which is used as the basis for calculating any interest to be applied and which comes from a publicly available source which can be verified by both parties to a payment service contract;

21.

‘unique identifier’ means a combination of letters, numbers or symbols specified to the payment service user by the payment service provider and to be provided by the payment service user to identify unambiguously the other payment service user and/or his payment account for a payment transaction;

22.

‘agent’ means a natural or legal person which acts on behalf of a payment institution in providing payment services;

23.

‘payment instrument’ means any personalised device(s) and/or set of procedures agreed between the payment service user and the payment service provider and used by the payment service user in order to initiate a payment order;

24.

‘means of distance communication’ refers to any means which, without the simultaneous physical presence of the payment service provider and the payment service user, may be used for the conclusion of a payment services contract;

25.

‘durable medium’ means any instrument which enables the payment service user to store information addressed personally to him in a way accessible for future reference for a period of time adequate to the purposes of the information and which allows the unchanged reproduction of the information stored;

26.

‘micro-enterprise’ means an enterprise, which at the time of conclusion of the payment service contract, is an enterprise as defined in Article 1 and Article 2(1) and (3) of the Annex to Recommendation 2003/361/EC;

27.

‘business day’ means a day on which the relevant payment service provider of the payer or the payment service provider of the payee involved in the execution of a payment transaction is open for business as required for the execution of a payment transaction;

28.

‘direct debit’ means a payment service for debiting a payer's payment account, where a payment transaction is initiated by the payee on the basis of the payer's consent given to the payee, to the payee's payment service provider or to the payer's own payment service provider;

29.

‘branch’ means a place of business other than the head office which is a part of a payment institution, which has no legal personality and which carries out directly some or all of the transactions inherent in the business of a payment institution; all the places of business set up in the same Member State by a payment institution with a head office in another Member State shall be regarded as a single branch;

30.

‘group’ means a group of undertakings, which consists of a parent undertaking, its subsidiaries and the entities in which the parent undertaking or its subsidiaries have a holding as well as undertakings linked to each other by a relationship referred to in Article 12(1) of Directive 83/349/EEC.