Six EU member states - Belgium, Spain, France, Cyprus, Poland and Portugal - have been threatened with legal action by the European Commission unless they comply with one-year old rules on e-money issuance.
The six countries have been asked to notify to the European Commission within the next two months the measures they are taking to update their national legislation to comply with the e-money Directive, which is aimed at lowering barriers to entry for new market players. Electronic money is defined under the Directive as a digital equivalent of cash, stored on an electronic device or remotely at a server.
The deadline for implementing the rules was 30 April 2011. In the six countries named and shamed by the Commission some of the Directive's provisions still have to be implemented and the transposition process is described as "very slow".
The Commission says that failure to abide by the rules will result in a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union and the imposition of financial penalties.