Implementation of the Payment Services Directive - HMT Consultation Paper

With the aim of achieving a Single Market in retail payment services, the European Commission adopted a legislative proposal for a Payment Services Directive (PSD) on 1 December 2005.

Political agreement between the Council and the European Parliament was reached in April 2007, and the Directive was adopted on 13 November 2007 and published in the Official Journal of the EU on 5 December 2007. The PSD must be implemented into national law by 1 November 2009.

The main aim of the Directive is to improve the competitiveness of the European Union by integrating national payments markets and providing support for the European payments industry to build the infrastructure necessary for a single payments market.

This consultation document sets out how the Government proposes to implement the Directive in an effective, proportionate, and risk-based manner. It discusses the Government’s proposed approach to implementing each Title of the Directive. It also explains where the Government has flexibility in implementation and presents the options available. In particular, it includes a discussion of the following issues:

• the scope of firms which will be subject to the requirements of the Directive;
• the application of safeguarding requirements to different types of business;
• the conditions for waiving the application of the prudential authorisation requirements;
• the waiving of some of the conduct of business conditions in Titles III and Title IV for low-value payment instruments and electronic money; and
• the potential changes to payer liability for unauthorised use of payment instruments.

The Government invites responses to the consultation questions posed in each chapter. Respondents are free to frame their responses and input as they see fit.

The final text of the Payments Service Directive can be found at:
http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2007/l_319/l_31920071205en...