Payment Services
Law Blog

When creating the legal framework for regulations in the financial sector, the European legislator had primarily traditional financial services in mind. As a result, novel technologies and products, in particular distributed ledger technologies ("DLT") and crypto-assets, are not satisfactorily regulated.

On the one hand, this may have the effect of unnecessarily hampering innovation in finance, and on the other hand, novel developments may pose previously unknown risks.

Therefore, as part of the Digital Finance Package, in order to promote digital finance, the EU legislator adopted Regulation (EU) 2022/858 of 30 May 2022 on a pilot regime for market infrastructures based on distributed ledger technology (DLT pilot regime), which was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 02 June 2022, which enters into force today (22. June 2022) and which will apply as of 23 March 2023.

On 1st of March, the European Banking Authority (EBA) published an answer to a question which had been submitted by the card schemes. What impact will this have on the various use cases or the liability of the card issuer and how does BaFin view this?

The European Banking Authority (EBA) and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published their reports on ICOs and Crypto-Assets on 9 January 2018 (EBA Report and ESMA Advice). Both EU authorities highlight issues relating to the current EU regulatory framework and call for an EU-wide approach to ICO and Crypto-Asset regulation.

Our previous articles showed the influence of national and european legislation on virtual currencies, however only being a partial area of the payment business. Here is also an example of international influence: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) published a statement on 19th October. The FATF plans the progressive publication of guidelines for the supervision and control of virtual asset service providers.

A new circular by BaFin addresses BaFin’s concerns to financial institutions regarding AML-Compliance in connection with virtual currencies. The circular also indicates BaFin’s view regarding a license requirement for cryptoexchange platforms upon the „Bitcoin-ruling“.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published a draft of the EBA Guidelines on Outsourcing and launched a public consultation. The consultation period closed on 24 September 2018. The new Guidelines are planned to enter into force on 30 June 2019 and will add further provisions and regulations with regard to outsourcing arrangements.

The European Commission envisages to fight money laundering terrorist financing more effectively by implementing an overall European strategy. EBA shall be strenghtened and able to supervise the EU member states and financial institutions in the EU.

On 13 June 2018 EBA has published an opinion on the interpretation of regulatory technical standards (RTS) on strong customer authentication (SCA) and common and secure communication. The opinion clarifies some open questions on the interpretation of the RTS.

The second payment services directive (Directive (EU) 2015/2366, “PSD2”) as well as well as the fourth anti-money laundering directive (Directive (EU) 2015/849, “4AMLD”) gives EU member states’ (“Host Member State”) authorities the competence to require those payment service providers or e-money issuers having its head office in another EU member state and acting in the territory of that Host Member State in forms other than a branch to appoint a central contact point in the territory of that Host Member State. The appointment of such central contact point and the obligations connected with such appointment might have a significant impact on the provision of payment services or e-money business under the provisions of the European Passport.