Legal constants and the ‘constant’ outside of the law: Mobile payments in comparative perspective under European Union law

Abstract

This article aims to determine whether mobile payments can be characterized by a legal constant, or common legal meaning. Indeed, mobile payments are a new form of payment system that is shaping the new economy of financial markets. Generally, they are part of the Fintech phenomenon, and they are specifically regulated in Europe, inter alia, under the Payment System Directive and the Regulation on Multilateral Interchange Fees. Nonetheless, those secondary hard law acts do not include any compulsory legal definition for mobile payments, which remain undefined and conventionally identified as means of proximity or remote payments. With that in mind, the article introduces for the first time in comparative law a new concept that aims at discovering meanings rather than similarities and differences that are irremediably limited to a merely descriptive function. To this end, the article argues that each time the constant outside of the law is subsequently recognized as ‘legal’, it becomes a legal constant, which is in turn capable of effectively revolutionizing the same study of mobile payments as well as of comparative law tout court.