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Italy: Legal & Litigation

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Banca d'Italia continues to issue administrative sanctions against payment/e-money institutions and banks (e.g. Moneynet Spa, Smart Bank Spa), and D.Lgs. 208/2025 (effective 2026) materially strengthens enforcement by introducing periodic 'penalita di mora' penalty payments alongside classic pecuniary sanctions. AGCM competition review of the Nexi/SIA merger (2021) continues to shape scheme-access litigation risk, and Banca d'Italia's supervisory interpretation reclassifying most BNPL products as regulated consumer credit is reshaping compliance exposure for BNPL providers.

Horizon · 2026-11-01 (± a quarter)EU Consumer Credit Directive II enters into force, tightening BNPL exemption thresholdsAdopted, not yet in force · Tier 3 source
Standing sub-brief · as of 5 July 2026144 words · last cycle 2026-07-04

Legal & Litigation

D.Lgs. 208/2025 introduces periodic penalty payments -- penalita di mora, under new Art.144-ter.1 TUB -- leviable daily, weekly or monthly until non-compliance ceases, alongside classic pecuniary sanctions. The reform materially raises enforcement exposure for payment and e-money institutions with unresolved supervisory findings, changing the cost calculus of prolonged non-compliance.

Separately, Banca d'Italia has clarified that most buy-now-pay-later agreements qualify as regulated consumer-credit financing under national banking law when the lender is not the merchant, ahead of the EU Consumer Credit Directive II entering into force from November 2026. The reclassification pulls independent BNPL providers into licensing, AML and disclosure regimes, favouring bank-backed BNPL models as CCD II compliance thresholds tighten.

no periodic updates on record for this sub-brief

Sources and findings (4)
  1. T1https://www.bancaditalia.it/compiti/vigilanza/provvedimenti-sanzionatori/index.htmlretrieved
  2. T3https://www.diritto.it/dlgs-208-2025-novita-per-banche-e-vigilanza/retrieved
  3. T2https://one.oecd.org/document/DAF/COMP/WD(2025)36/en/pdfretrieved
  4. T3https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/02/03/3230796/28124/en/Italy-Buy-Now-Pay-Later-Business-Report-2025-A-26-6-Billion-Market-by-2031-from-8-06-Billion-in-2025-Featuring-Klarna-Scalapay-Oney-PayPal-PagoLight-Nexi-Confidis-Deutsche-Bank.htmlretrieved