On 25 September 2019, the Bank of England (BoE) published an update on the UK payments industry’s move to ISO 20022 – a common language standard for world-wide payments data. As outlined in a joint response to its consultation on the adoption of ISO 20022 in November 2018, the BoE’s approach to the implementation of ISO 20022 in CHAPS consists of three phases: the preparatory phase (phase 1), the introductory phase (phase 2) and the…

On 24 September 2019, the European Payments Council (EPC) published updated 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 EPC guidance on the visual presentation of mandates issued by creditors under the SEPA SDD Core and the SDD B2B Scheme as part of their offer to debtors to use the SDD schemes as a way for…

On 13 September 2019, the European Commission (Commission) published a set of FAQs on the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2). The FAQs provide an overview of PSD2 and how it benefits consumers. They also detail the requirements of Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), which came into force on 14 September 2019, and set out the exemptions for certain accounts. The FAQs also cover the effect that PSD2 will have on the payments markets.…

On 10 September 2019, the European Payments Council (EPC) decided to amend the maximum amount per Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA)  Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) transaction to 100,000 euros, effective as of 1 July 2020. For the time being, the maximum amount an originator can transfer via a single SCT Inst transaction is set at 15,000 euros until the beginning of July 2020.…

On 3 September 2019, the FCA published a webpage on Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) rules under the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2). The webpage sets out the FCA’s expectations of firms to develop SCA solutions that work for all groups of customers. This means firms may need to provide several different methods of authentication for customers, not relying solely on methods that use mobile phones, for consumers who do not have or are unable to…

On 28 August 2019, the European Commission (the Commission) published an answer given by Valdis Dombrovskis (Vice-President European Commission, Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union) concerning cryptoassets. In its response, the Commission refers to an announcement made in its 2018 Action Plan on FinTech (see previous blog post here) that it is looking closely at the opportunities and challenges raised by cryptoassets, including digital currencies. The Commission explains that, based on advice…

On 20 August 2019, the FCA published a Dear CEO letter on the requirements for strong customer authentication (SCA) in card-not-present e-commerce transactions. The Dear CEO letter follows the earlier FCA announcement regarding an 18 month plan to implement SCA rules under the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) for the e-commerce industry of card issuers, payments firms and online retailers (our blog is here). In the Dear CEO letter the FCA welcomes the plan…