Direct Debit Progress

I asked for help on Tuesday and almost immediately received an e-mail from Michael O'Neill of the Irish Payments Services Organisation. Yesterday we spoke by telephone, which led to my

(a) learning something useful and

(b) being corrected.

As to the latter, Michael tells me that I am wrong: the DDG is not a "no-quibble" situation. That continues to pose problems for me, but I will not go into those now.

More importantly, I learned from Michael that the EU has enacted a Directive (7665/2007) the effect of which will be to render the DDG into what I thought it already was. For up to 8 weeks after a debit leaves a customer's account, s/he will be able to recall it without having to give any reason.

Disappointingly, it will be near the end of 2009 before this becomes the case:

come on, you bankers ! Give it to us now !