Towards a European Retail Payment Law. The Role of Private Law

The aim of this paper is to determine whether the legal discourse on payment rules is shifting from a state of fragmentation to one resting on a unified and autonomous legal footing, thus attempting to verify whether we are witnessing the emergence of a European retail payment law. By examining how the payments package would redefine the regulatory space of EU retail payment law governance, the paper reviews how current trends in the credit market (recognition of the social dimension of the credit market) and consumer law (the fragmentation of the concept of the consumer and the so-called vulnerability turn) affect the proposed new regulation. Unsurprisingly, the result of regulating the intersubjective relationships between users and payment services providers (PSP) is an expansion of the area that private law governs, both in terms of widening the area of PSP responsibility and demanding a degree of responsibilisation from the user. The enforcement side is also investigated, from the perspective of regulatory design and its consequences for the need for consistency of application and predictability of decisions.