Payments regulatory news, 1 March 2021

Contents

• Download the full regulatory news bulletin
• Global Payments Newsletter: February 2021
• SEPA direct debit schemes: EPC guidelines for appearance of mandates
• EU PSD2: EBA opinion on obstacles to provision of third party provider services

Global Payments Newsletter: February 2021

Hogan Lovells has published the February 2021 edition of our Global Payments Newsletter which reports on regulatory developments, payment market developments and surveys and reports. Key developments of interest over the last month include:

• United Kingdom: The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has published two calls for views, one of which focuses on authorised push payment (APP) scams and the other on consumer protection in interbank payments.
• India: The government is planning a cryptocurrency bill with the aim of establishing a framework for the creation of an official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India.
• United Kingdom: The FCA is consulting on changes to its technical standards on strong customer authentication (SCA) and common and secure methods of communication (UK SCA-RTS) and to its Payment Services and Electronic Money Approach Document.

SEPA direct debit schemes: EPC guidelines for appearance of mandates

The European Payments Council (EPC) has published revised guidelines on the appearance of mandates for the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) Direct Debit (SDD) Core Scheme and the SDD Business-to-Business (B2B) Scheme.

The guidelines contain guidance on the visual presentation of mandates under the SEPA SDD Core Scheme and the SDD B2B Scheme issued by creditors as part under the SDD schemes to enable debtors to make payments. They aim to illustrate several ways to reduce mandate complexity without losing any essential content and while remaining compliant with the relevant scheme rulebook.

The EPC also provides advice on when the delivery of the debtor bank's BIC (bank identifier code) is mandatory in SDD transactions.

The guidelines are intended to supplement section 4.7.2 of the SDD Core and SDD B2B Scheme Rulebooks, which define the rules for the content of SDD Core and SDD B2B mandates respectively.

EU PSD2: EBA opinion on obstacles to provision of third party provider services

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has published a further opinion on supervisory actions to ensure the removal of obstacles to account access under the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2).

Article 32(3) of the regulatory technical standards (RTS) on strong customer authentication (SCA) and common and secure communication (CSC) set out in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/389 requires account servicing payment service providers (ASPSPs) that have implemented a dedicated interface to ensure that the interface does not create obstacles to the provision of payment initiation and account information services. In June 2020, the EBA published an opinion providing clarifications on practices by ASPSPs that are obstacles to account access. The EBA has decided to issue this second related opinion as it has observed that some EU ASPSPs have still not removed obstacles to account access.

The EBA will monitor the way in which the supervisory actions referred to in its opinion are taken into account. If it identifies inconsistencies in the application of the PSD2 and the RTS, it will take action to remedy those inconsistencies.

Download the full regulatory news bulletin 

Authored by Yvonne Clapham