After freelancers, businesses are called upon to activate the IRIS direct payment system within the year.
The relevant provision will be included in the bill of the National Economy and Finance Ministry for the strengthening of the Capital Market, which is planned to be put out for public consultation in early February.
The relevant procedure should be completed by October 9, which is the final deadline for compliance of EU member states with the European Regulation on Direct Payments.
The regulation sets uniform rules for cross-border direct money transfers within the European Union.
More specifically, interbank and transnational transactions will be carried out in 10 seconds, 7 days a week and 24 hours a day, regardless of the country where money is sent.
Transaction limits
The daily limit for direct transactions will be doubled to 1,000 euros in the current year: 500 euros per day is the amount that a natural person can send money to another natural person and another 500 euros for paying for services to a freelancer, up from 500 euros per day currently in effect.
The cost of transferring money and making a payment from the natural person is free, while the freelancer who receives payments is charged a commission, the amount of which is lower than with a debit or credit card.
All citizens can activate the IRIS (mobile banking) application and carry out direct money transfers with other citizens up to 500 euros per day without bank fees.
In addition, with a recent legislative initiative by the government, freelancers and the self-employed are now required to accept direct payments from their clients and thus pay significantly lower commissions compared to those they would pay if the transaction were carried out through the use of POS.
Its appeal is growing
The IRIS direct payment system is now part of the everyday life of 3.5 million citizens and 560,000 registered professionals with significant penetration in electronic transactions.
According to DIAS data in 2024:
DIAS transactions: They reached 467.2 million, recording an increase of 15% compared to 2023 and 60% compared to 2020, with a total value of 501.9 billion (+11.6% annual increase).
IRIS Payments: 137% YoY increase in IRIS transactions (57.3 million), with a total value of 6.1 billion (+110% YoY increase).
58% of interbank transfers were completed instantly, with 70.6 million transactions (+92.1% YoY increase).
The IRIS Payments family of services includes direct money transfers between friends (IRIS P2P), between professionals (IRIS P2B), as well as payments in an online store (IRIS eCommerce), which in 2024 managed to achieve particularly strong transaction growth rates, amounting to 142%, 844% and 94% respectively, compared to the corresponding figures in 2023.
On December 31, 2024, IRIS P2P users amounted to 3.43 million (in August 2024, a monthly record of registrations was recorded with 166 thousand new users), with 65% of users belonging to the 18-35 age group.
Registered professionals in the IRIS P2B service reached 557,000, a number increased by 259% compared to 2023. As for the number of registered merchants/eshops in the IRISeCommerce service, it reached 6.9 thousand in 2024, a 46-fold increase compared to 2020.
Based on available data, Greece has the second highest increase since 2022 in the availability of direct payments across the European Union, after the Netherlands, according to the European Central Bank’s SPACE Report.
