Judgment_paragraph 5 · American Express Co. v The Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury (C-304/16)

5Article 2 of that regulation, headed ‘Definitions’, states:‘For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions shall apply:...(2) “issuer” means a payment service provider contracting to provide a payer with a payment instrument to initiate and process the payer’s card-based payment transactions;...(10) “interchange fee” means a fee paid for each transaction directly or indirectly (i.e. through a third party) between the issuer and the acquirer involved in a card-based payment transaction. The net compensation or other agreed remuneration is considered to be part of the interchange fee;(11) “net compensation” means the total net amount of payments, rebates or incentives received by an issuer from the payment card scheme, the acquirer or any other intermediary in relation to card-based payment transactions or related activities;...(17) “four party payment card scheme” means a payment card scheme in which card-based payment transactions are made from the payment account of a payer to the payment account of a payee through the intermediation of the scheme, an issuer (on the payer’s side) and an acquirer (on the payee’s side);(18) “three party payment card scheme” means a payment card scheme in which the scheme itself provides acquiring and issuing services and card-based payment transactions are made from the payment account of a payer to the payment account of a payee within the scheme. When a three party payment card scheme licenses other payment service providers for the issuance of card-based payment instruments or the acquiring of card-based payment transactions, or both, or issues card-based payment instruments with a co-branding partner or through an agent, it is considered to be a four party payment card scheme;...(24) “payment service provider” means any natural or legal person authorised to provide the payment services listed in the Annex to Directive 2007/64/EC [of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 November 2007 on payment services in the internal market amending Directives 97/7/EC, 2002/65/EC, 2005/60/EC and 2006/48/EC and repealing Directive 97/5/EC (OJ 2007 L 319, p. 1)] or recognised as an electronic money issuer in accordance with Article 1(1) of Directive 2009/110/EC [of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 September 2009 on the taking up, pursuit and prudential supervision of the business of electronic money institutions amending Directives 2005/60/EC and 2006/48/EC and repealing Directive 2000/46/EC (OJ 2009 L 267, p. 7)]. A payment service provider can be an issuer or an acquirer or both;...(28) “processing entity” means any natural or legal person providing payment transaction processing services;...(30) “payment brand” means any material or digital name, term, sign, symbol or combination of them, capable of denoting under which payment card scheme card-based payment transactions are carried out;…(32) “co-branding” means the inclusion of at least one payment brand and at least one non-payment brand on the same card-based payment instrument;...’