taxud/2414/08 - European Commission - Europa

Internet or Online banking describes the use of a bank's secure website to view for a
specific account balances and statements perform transactions and payments, and various
other facilities, especially for banking outside bank hours and banking from anywhere
where internet access is available. Telephone banking is the term applied to specific
provision of banking services over the telephone in relation to a specific account. In
many cases such calls are to a call centre or automated service, although some
institutions continue to answer such calls in their branches. Often call centre opening
times are considerably longer than branches, and some firms provide these services on a
24 hour basis;
(8) debit and smart card services related to a specific account;
A debit card removes money from the user's account after every transaction. Cards are
related to a specific account. In many countries the debit card is multipurpose, acting as
the automated teller machine card for withdrawing cash and as a cheque guarantee card.
Merchants can also offer "cash back/ cash out" facilities to customers, where a customer
can withdraw cash along with his purchase. The use of debit cards has become widespread
in many countries and has overtaken the cheque and in some instances cash
transactions by volume. Debit cards are used widely for telephone and Internet
purchases;
Smart card services use bank cards with a microchip which can be up-loaded with a
maximum amount from the monetary account of the account holder and which are then
used to pay for small purchases such as a newspaper, cakes from the baker, car parking, a
telephone call in a public telephone box etc. These are usually small amounts for which
coins would have been used in the past. An example of such smart card services is the
Belgian Proton system;
(9) the clearance and the transfer of funds between financial operators;
Inter-bank electronic clearance services organise the transfer of funds between accounts;
and include the transfer and clearing of funds transferred for the settlement of credit card
accounts; they also include the transfer and clearing of funds between monetary accounts
of credit card operators and between monetary accounts of credit card operators and
economic operators having accepted a credit card payment or cash out;
(10) the transfer of funds from a specific account into other money media such as
telephone cards, credits for mobile phones and other media which allow
payment for goods and services;
Debits and credits of other e-money media organise the transfer of funds from a specific
monetary account into other money media such as telephone cards, credits for mobile
phones and other media which allow payment for goods and services;
(11) sorting and counting of money related to a specific account;
Such activities cover the sorting of coins and bank notes in the form of withdrawal from
an account or for the deposit on an account;
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