Supreme Constitutional Court strikes down law on micro-enterprise banking access

On October 20, 2026, the Plenary of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Cyprus ruled that a legislative act passed in March 2026 is unconstitutional. The legislation, titled "The Payment Account Fees Comparability, Payment Account Switching and Payment Account Access by Micro-Enterprises Law of 2026," sought to extend consumer protection standards regarding payment accounts to micro-enterprises.

The President of the Republic had referred the law to the court under Article 51.1 of the Constitution. The court determined that the law violated Article 26 of the Constitution, which guarantees the freedom to contract. Judges concluded that the legislation imposed an impermissible interference in the contractual freedom of credit institutions without sufficient justification. The act aimed to replicate the protections established by Directive 2014/92/EU, which was previously transposed into national law (Law 64(I)/2017) exclusively for individual consumers.

By ruling the law unconstitutional, the Court effectively blocked the attempt to mandate that banks provide specific account access and fee transparency terms to micro-enterprises as they do for regular consumers. The decision, announced by the Legal Service, resolves the constitutional challenge initiated by the President, ensuring that current contractual frameworks for banks remain unchanged regarding these business entities.