Contractual basis of the electronic cash system
Contractual relationships
The electronic cash system is based upon an agreement between the German banking associations on behalf
of their members and any further participants of the scheme, who have declared their adherence to the scheme
regulations.
The electronic cash agreement defines the contractual relationships between the scheme participants and
sets out the technical requirements for terminals, networks and cards.
The contractual relationships between
- cardholder and issuing bank,
- issuing bank and authorisation system,
- merchant and merchant bank and between
- merchant and network provider
are not regulated by the electronic cash agreement but by individual contracts between the players.
The electronic cash agreement however constitutes the following contractual relationships:
- the participation of banks to the scheme as issuer and as merchant banks,
- the payment guarantee of each participating issuing bank towards any merchant for any successfully
completed transaction,
- the participation of network providers to the scheme.
Therefore the electronic cash agreement is sub-divided into three parts:
- the electronic cash agreement between the associations itself,
- the network provider agreement between a network provider and Zentraler Kreditausschuss (on behalf
of the participating banks in the electronic cash system)
- the merchant agreement constituting the payment guarantee of the issuing bank to the merchant and
the duty of the merchant to pay a merchant fee to the issuing bank
