Businesses must provide customers with at least one electronic payment option

Businesses in Belgium will have to offer their customers at least one electronic means of payment from 1 July 2022, as stipulated in a bill approved by parliament on Thursday. Merchants will be free to offer whichever electronic payment method they want. Payments in cash will continue to be an option.

The measure is part of finance minister Vincent Van Peteghem’s anti-fraud plan which also includes the establishing of partnerships between the tax audit services, the public prosecutor's office and other control services within the framework of joint multidisciplinary investigation teams. The bill also proposes that a minimum of 25 officials of the Social Tax Inspectorate (ISI) will be awarded the status of judicial police officer.