The study was presented to a conference organised by the Commission in Brussels on 16th September, which highlighted the increasing economic importance of electronic payment transactions and assessed the technological solutions that keep payment providers and users ahead of criminals and fraudsters.
Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein said:
"E-commerce has massive potential to boost Europe's economy. Although big advances continue to be made concerning the security of electronic payments, that is not enough on its own. Consumers need to be convinced that electronic payments are 'no hassle'."
According to the Commission's figures for 2001, there are over 207 million non-cash transactions every working day in the EU, an average of 138 transactions per year per inhabitant.
A significant proportion of these transactions are electronic, but any increase will depend on breaking consumer reliance on traditional payment methods such as cheques, and also in boosting consumer confidence in on-line security.
The study established a 'confidence index' for each Member State, based on a number of indicators – the most important being interviews with 2,400 members of the public across the EU.
The overall EU index was 7.08 from a maximum of ten, indicating a reasonable level of trust in electronic payments instruments. But there still remained significant fears about security, fraud and threats to privacy.
In general, consumers in the northern part of the Union, particularly the Nordic countries and the Netherlands, had greater confidence in making payments electronically than those in the south. Finland was by far the most confident, with an indicator of 8.41, while at the other end of the scale the Greek public gave an indicator of only 5.25.
The study also assessed the accessibility of security information on web sites. Six hundred sites were examined, and of these only 26% made security information easy to find. The French were top performers, at 47%, while only 6% of Austrian sites contained clear and accessible security information.
E-banking sites had the most accessible security information, with 100% of such sites from Greece, Ireland and the Netherlands being accessible. In general, 58% of e-banking sites across the EU made security information readily available.
E-banking also scored well on the clarity front – with 83% of such EU sites giving clear information. Only 55% of e-commerce sites used clear language in their security information.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the above results, consumer organisations taking part in the study stressed that there are still many e-payments issues that remain unclear to consumers. These relate in particular to the liability, role and responsibilities of each party to an e-transaction if a security problem occurs.
The study shows that although many customers perceive themselves as the likely victims should a transaction go wrong, in most cases, the damage is in reality borne principally by the trader or the payment system provider.
The Commission will shortly be publishing a Communication with proposals for a new legal framework for payments in the Internal Market. A key aspect will be making sure citizens and businesses can make electronic payments simply and safely anywhere in the EU. The results of the study will be taken into account.