3 2 February 2009

News:

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) told firms selling single-premium Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) with unsecured personal loans to withdraw the product by 29 May, due to its concerns over poor sales practices, in a 23 February letter to CEOs.

France and Poland could face financial penalties for failing to transpose the 3rd Anti-Money Laundering Directive (2005/60/EC) into law by 15 December 2007, after the European Commission referred the countries to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on 29 January.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) will begin accepting applications for authorisation as a 'payment institution' under the Payment Services Regulations 2009 (PSR) from 1 May. The PSR, which implement the Payment Services Directive in the UK, were published by HM Treasury and laid before Parliament on 9 February.

Features:

For the better part of the last year, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) has become increasingly concerned about the rising fees being imposed on merchants and other businesses for credit and debit card transactions by MasterCard, Visa, chartered banks and other financial institutions. This is a very complex issue that has many facets, but the end result that seems assured is the imposition of vastly higher costs via higher merchant fees on all businesses that accept credit cards - and notably on small-and medium-sized businesses - at a time when the Canadian economy is facing other serious challenges.

The Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament recently adopted amendments to a Directive proposing changes to the regulation of electronic payments. Conservative Member of the European Parliament John Purvis, who outlined changes to the proposed Directive in the report adopted by the European Parliament, explains how the new Directive will facilitate the growth of e-payments in Europe.

Research undertaken by the Central Bank of Brazil has indicated that the country is moving away from cash and cheque as the dominant methods of payment, towards card and electronic payments. Rodrigo d'Avila Mariano and Mariana Alonso Tomazelli, of Pinheiro Neto Advogados, examine how Brazil's regulatory system is adapting to this change as well as the remaining obstacles to full payment interoperability.

The Competition Commission (CC) recently published its final report following its market investigation into the level of competition in the UK market for payment protection insurance (PPI) - an insurance policy designed to protect a borrower's ability to maintain credit repayments in the event that the borrower becomes unable to maintain repayments. Suzanne MacDonald, Partner and Head of TLT Solicitors' Financial Services Regulation team, examines the CC's findings and provides an overview of the Financial Services Authority's response to the CC's final report.

The roll-out of contactless payments has focused on replacing cash in low-value transactions at physical retail outlets but less so in the digital world, such as on the internet. David Birch, a Director at Consult Hyperion, explains why a fast and easy system would encourage consumers to pay for content that they can get for free, examines why banks or internet sites have not invested in developing such a system and explains how the possible use of near-field communication technology could enable easy micropayments online.

The EU Returns Directive, approved last year, is designed to harmonise laws amongst Member States, requiring them to return non-EU migrants to their home countries or offer them legal status. Manuel Orozco and Elisabeth Burgess of the Remittances and Development Program of the Inter-American Dialogue - a non-profit policy analysis organisation - examine the impact that the Directive will have on migrant labour flows in European Union Member States, including on remittance products.