Review Private-Banking Credit Card Terms Under CCD2

Information cut-off: 15 June 2026.

Directive (EU) 2023/2225 of 18 October 2023 on credit agreements for consumers (“CCD2”) requires each card to be classified before contractual terms are updated. CCD2 applies to credit granted to consumers, meaning natural persons acting outside their trade, business or profession. In Luxembourg, Bill of Law n°8708 transposes CCD2 into the Consumer Code.

Must-know: a card may be a payment instrument without a credit function, or a credit product. The legal answer depends on the actual mechanics: deferred debit, overdraft facility, overrun, instalment repayment or another credit mechanism.

Three key points:

1. Scope. Start with how the card works in practice. With a deferred debit card, purchases are made during the month and the full balance is debited on a fixed date, rather than immediately after each transaction. For example, if a cardholder spends EUR 5,000 during the month and the full EUR 5,000 is automatically debited 30 days later, without interest and without any option to carry the balance forward, the arrangement may fall outside CCD2. Under Bill of Law n°8708, the exclusion based on Article 2(5) of CCD2 may apply where the cardholder must repay the full balance within 40 days, no interest is charged and only limited fees linked to the payment service are payable. If the card allows longer repayment, instalments, interest-bearing balances or another form of ongoing credit, CCD2 is more likely to apply.
2. Documentation. Once the card has been classified, review all customer-facing documentation: card terms and conditions, tariff sheets, pre-contractual disclosures, annual percentage rate of charge calculations, marketing materials and digital application journeys. The objective is to ensure that the description of the card matches its real operation, that any credit cost is properly disclosed, and that a credit feature is not presented as an ordinary payment service.
3. Controls. CCD2 does not stop at disclosures. Where the card includes a credit function, banks must maintain decision-making and monitoring controls. Under Article 18(1), (4), (8) and (10) of CCD2, lenders must assess the consumer’s creditworthiness before granting credit, document the procedures and information used, provide access to human review where automated processing is used, and perform a new assessment before any significant credit-limit increase.

In practice, private banks should first map each card feature to its legal qualification under CCD2. Priority areas include premium cards, card-linked overdrafts, credit-limit increases and ancillary insurance wording. These features are more likely to fall within scope or trigger specific consumer-credit obligations. They should be reviewed for disclosure requirements, creditworthiness controls and contractual compliance.

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References:

Directive (EU) 2023/2225 of 18 October 2023 on credit agreements for consumers (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2023/2225/oj)

Bill of Law n°8708, filing document of 19 February 2026 (https://wdocs-pub.chd.lu/docs/Dossiers_parlementaires/8708/20260223_Depot.pdf)