Letter on the European Commission's Legislative Package on Interchange Fees in Credit Card payments [COM(2013) 550-2013/0265 (COD)]

Roland Paschek, Head of Legal, Lufthansa AirPlus Servicekarten GmbH, Germany

In July 2013 the European Commission published its Legislative Package with proposals on a revised Payment Services Directive (PSD II) and on a Regulation on interchange fees for card-based payment transactions (ICF). The ICF-regulation comes after years of several single competition enforcement procedures and will cap the amount of interchange fees that are paid by the merchant’s bank to the cardholder’s bank. Banks with (corporate) credit card portfolios as well as independent, specialized issuers of corporate credit cards need to follow up on the Legislative Package's lawmaking process and ensure a level playing field in their market segment.

Roland Paschek has studied law in Regensburg, Heidelberg and Liège. He holds degrees in Law from Bavaria (ass. Jur., ref. Jur.) and is admitted to the bar in Germany (RAK Bamberg). He has worked in in-house legal roles for former Lufthansa Systems GmbH (intern, sales) and for Lufthansa AirPlus Servicekarten GmbH (currently: Chief Counsel). His responsibilities in Lufthansa AirPlus on top of Legal also included Data Protection and Compliance.

AirPlus is an international provider of credit cards for the corporate customer segment. Its field of business comprises payments and settlement of business travel expenses. AirPlus supports more than 40,000 customers worldwide, the vast majority of which are in Europe. Lufthansa AirPlus Servicekarten GmbH is a licensed payment institution under the supervision of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority in Germany (Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht, BaFin). AirPlus is headquartered in Neu-Isenburg, Germany, and currently employs a staff of 1,200 people, most of them at its European locations.