On December 13, 2017, the European Banking Authority published a final report setting out final draft Regulatory Technical Standards and Implementing Technical Standards under the revised Payment Services Directive.
PSD2 requires that the EBA develop, operate and maintain an electronic central register that contains information as notified by national regulators. The EBA consulted earlier in the year on its proposals for the central register and that consultation closed in September 2017.
The final draft Regulatory Technical Standards set out the technical requirements for the development, operation and maintenance of the electronic central register and on access to the information contained in the register. The final draft Implementing Technical Standards set out the details and structure of the information to be entered by national regulators in their public registers and notified to the EBA.
Users of the register will be able to access details such as the date of authorization/registration, commercial names and the cross-border services provided by a range of institutions. The EBA notes that, while a comprehensive register would be desirable for all market participants, the EBA is not legally able to include credit institutions in the register. This is because the EBA's mandate under PSD2 contains a pre-defined list of institutions which does not include credit institutions. The register will therefore contain information relating to: payment and electronic money institutions, their agents and foreign branches; exempted payment and electronic money institutions and their agents; account information service providers, their agents and foreign branches; providers of services based on specific payment instrument that can be used only in a limited way; and providers of electronic communication networks executing payment transactions or providing services in addition to electronic communications services.
The RTS and ITS will now be submitted to the European Commission for endorsement, following which there will be a three-month scrutiny period for the European Parliament and the Council. Assuming no changes are made to the RTS and/or ITS, they will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union and come into force 20 days later.
The EBA expects to launch the register later in 2018, rather than on the implementation date for PSD2 of January 13, 2018. This is because the EBA cannot start development of the register until the RTS and ITS are adopted.
The EBA final report is available at: http://www.eba.europa.eu/documents/10180/2061040/Final+Report+on+final+draft+RTS+and+ITS+on+EBA+Register+under+PSD2+%28EBA-RTS-2017-10%29%20%28EBA-ITS-2017-07%29.pdf .
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.