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In March the commission conducted a secret study by sending 1 500 cross- border payments of ERU1 00 each all over the EU’s 15 member states. Seven of the transfers never arrived, of which only five were returned to the sender. But the commission’s ire was raised not so much by the lack of efficiency as by the outrageous cost of the transfers. The average charge was ERU24 and the highest, for a transfer from Greece to Denmark, was nearly 61. Moreover, more than 15% of the payments were unlawfully double-charged, so that both the recipient and the sender had to pay.

The main idea of the paragraph

A secret study by the Commission indicates that, due to the lack of a unified single market, the cost of providing financial services like sending cross-border payments is outrageously high.

欧洲委员会做的一项秘密调查表明，因为没有一个统一的市场（惯例），在提供象跨国支付这样的金融服务时其成本惊人地高。

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• Summary