Recent development
On December 26, 2015, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (the “BRSA”) amended the Regulation on Payment Services, Electronic Money Issuance, Payment Institutions and Electronic Money Institutions, relaxing certain requirements foreseen for companies providing payment services and e-money issuance (“Institutions”).
What the BRSA did
• Institutions are no longer obligated to appoint a deputy general manager.
• Non-recurring payment transactions are no longer required to be realized through an agreement, receipt or similar document that includes the payment service user’s confirmation would be sufficient for non-recurring transactions. This document (in the form of an agreement, receipt or similar document) must be generated for a specific payment transaction and a copy must be provided to the payment service user.
• The items which were required to be included in customer agreements for non-recurring transactions must still be included in the document to be provided to the customers, as set out above. Additionally, they must now be announced at the workplace where the payment services are rendered.
• Intermediary services for invoice payments are exempted from payment service providers’ obligation to inform payment service users of the conditions of the transactions.
• Institutions are no longer required to execute a framework agreement for payment relationships which are not periodic.
• Institutions and payment service users may freely decide on the type of the fees payable by the payment service user to the payment service provider for transactions where the payment service user is not a consumer.
• Providing intermediary services for invoice payments is subject to licensing under the payment services legislation. With the amended regulation, the scope of invoice payments has been narrowed to payments pertaining to services rendered to meet needs such as electricity, telephone, water, and natural gas. As a consequence, now Institutions which provide intermediary services for payment of taxes, levies, duties, social security premiums and associated penalties are not subject to licensing.
Conclusion
The BRSA has amended the regulation to relax certain provisions, especially those regarding invoice collections, non-recurring transactions and periodic transactions, in consideration of the practical inconveniences the Institutions have been facing. With these amendments, we see that the BRSA follows the market and has taken the necessary actions to address the difficulties experienced in implementing some of the previous requirements.
Please contact us if you have questions about how these changes might affect your company.
