2 4 April 2008

News:

Justice Andrew Smith has given UK banks permission to appeal a 24 April High Court ruling ([2008] EWHC 875 (Comm)) that unarranged bank overdraft charges are assessable for fairness under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (UTCCRs), however the appeal will not delay the results of an Office of Fair Trading (OFT) inquiry into the charges.

E-Finance & Payments Law & Policy is organising a Workshop examining the requirements and challenges facing 'payment institutions' under the Payment Services Directive (PSD).

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced it will investigate contactless payment devices and their implications for consumer protection policies.

Features:

Last month we saw the High Court hand down its first judgment on the closely watched test case brought by the Office of Fair Trading ('OFT'), with the agreement of seven high street banks and one building society (the 'Banks'), to establish the lawfulness and fairness of charges levied by current account providers for unauthorised overdrafts and returned item fees. These charges have caused controversy in recent times against the backdrop of the thousands of claims that have been brought against banks by customers on the grounds that they have had to pay high charges for being overdrawn by minimal amounts.

Finland's Ministry of Justice has established a working group to consider legislative reform concerning instant text message loans, after the Finnish Consumer Agency and Ombudsman found that less than half of the instant text message loan companies that it investigated complied with local regulations. Anja Peltonen, Director of the Consumer Law Division of the Finnish Consumer Agency and Ombudsman, examines the regulations governing loans provided by text message.

In a release dated 8 January, Linden Lab announced that as of 22 January it would be prohibited to offer interest or any direct return on an investment, be it in L$ or other currency without an applicable (real life!) government registration statement or financial institution charter.

The Financial Services Authority will require firms it regulates that handle client orders in investments to record certain telephone calls and e-communications from 6 March 2009, a measure that is designed to facilitate market abuse investigations. Leonard Ng and William Long, of Sidley Austin LLP, examine the recording rules and the implications for firms.

On 14 May 2008, the Payments Council unveiled the 'National Payments Plan - Setting the strategic vision for UK payments', which maps out a future path for payments in the UK. Brian Pomeroy, Chairman of the UK Payments Council, explains the aims and objectives of the plan and explains the changes to the UK payments market that the Plan will introduce.

The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) involves a migration, in stages, from a number of domestic payments systems to an integrated European payments system, which will make conducting cross-border payments just as easy as domestic payments. Phillip Rees, a Partner at Hugh James International, explains the pathway to full implementation of the SEPA.

The European Commission has recently established an Expert Group to create a framework to support the provision of e-invoicing services across Europe by 2009. Yuban Moodley and Dan Cootes, of CMS Cameron McKenna, analyse the findings of an Innopay and European Banking Association report into the European market for e-invoicing.