An EPML DE PROXI charge on your bank statement is a French banking label for a card payment made in person at a physical terminal, not the name of a specific merchant. “PROXI” is short for proximité, the French banking term for an in-store or face-to-face payment, as distinct from an online purchase. Because the descriptor identifies the payment method rather than the shop, the fastest way to place an unfamiliar charge is to compare its date and amount against receipts from any recent in-person purchases.
What the Label Actually Means
French payment systems tag transactions by type. A proximité payment is one where your card was physically present at a terminal, whether inserted, swiped, or tapped. Remote and online payments carry different labels, such as “VAD” (vente à distance) or “E-commerce.”
The merchant’s name may or may not appear next to “EPML DE PROXI,” depending on how the shop set up its payment contract. Sometimes the descriptor defaults to this generic system label instead of the merchant’s commercial name. That is why the line can look anonymous even when the transaction is perfectly ordinary.
How to Identify the Merchant
Start with your own records. Match the posting date and exact amount against receipts, whether paper or in an email inbox. Small in-person purchases are the usual culprits: a bakery, a parking meter, a vending machine, a café. Any of them can post under a generic proximity label rather than the shop’s name.
If nothing on your side matches, check with anyone else authorized on the card. A partner or family member may have made the purchase, and contactless “tap” payments are quick and easy to forget.
Still stuck? Call your bank. Your card issuer sees more transaction metadata than your statement shows, including the merchant’s full registered name, its category code, and sometimes the terminal location. A representative can usually tell you exactly where the charge came from.
Disputing an Unauthorized Charge
If you’ve ruled out every legitimate source and still don’t recognize the transaction, treat it as potentially unauthorized. What you do next depends on where your card was issued.
Cards Issued in the European Union
Under the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2), your liability for an unauthorized card transaction is capped at €50, so long as you did not act fraudulently or with gross negligence. Banks must operate a formal complaints procedure, and in most member states out-of-court dispute resolution is available. Contact your bank promptly to report the charge and ask for a reversal.
Cards Issued in the United States
The Fair Credit Billing Act caps liability for unauthorized charges at $50, and many issuers apply zero-liability policies that go further. To preserve your full legal rights, send a written dispute notice to your card issuer’s billing-inquiries address within 60 days of the statement date on which the charge first appeared. Include your name, account number, the transaction date and amount, and why you believe it’s an error.
The issuer must acknowledge your dispute within 30 days and resolve it within 90 days, or two billing cycles, whichever comes first. While the investigation is open, you are not required to pay the disputed amount, and the issuer cannot report it as delinquent.
Either way, move quickly. Reporting deadlines run from the statement date, and a fresh charge is easier for your bank to trace and reverse than an old one.