3 3 March 2009

News:

European banks will be able to charge a multilateral interchange fee (MIF) for each cross border direct debit transaction until 1 November 2012, despite the fact that the European Commission made clear ­ in a 24 March joint statement with the European Central Bank (ECB) ­ that the fee does not appear compatible with EU antitrust rules.

Local regulators within the European Union are creating a major delay to the implementation of the Payment Services Directive 2007/64/EC (PSD), according to a survey published on 10 March. Around 70% of the 37 European institutions that were questioned believed that national legislation would not be available until the third quarter of 2009, leaving very little time for institutions to become compliant by the 1 November deadline.

The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council (SSC) released a framework to promote card data security through the adoption of the PCI Data Security Standard (DSS), on 3 March. The Prioritzed Approach framework aims to help merchants ­ not fully compliant with the PCI DSS ­ identify high-risk targets.

Features:

With the recent publication by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) of the Turner Review in response to the global banking crisis a clear break was made with the previous approach of the FSA of 'light touch' regulation. At the same time as publishing the Turner Review the FSA also published its discussion paper on the regulatory response to the global banking crisis. The discussion paper is highly detailed and is intended to stimulate debate rather than pre-empt the outcome of decisions by international regulatory standard setters.

The UK Government implemented the Payment Services Regulations 2009 recently, which transposes the Payment Services Directive (PSD) in the UK into law. The UK is the first European nation to pass the PSD into national law. Phillip Rees, a Partner at Hugh James discusses the Directive and examines the new Regulations.

The European Commission's 3rd Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Directive was transposed into French law on 31 January. Benjamin May and Lise Breteau of Aramis Société d'Avocats, examine the implementation of the AML Directive in France and its impact on e-money and payment service providers.

The UK's VAT Tribunal ruled recently that an intermediary providing telecommunication and data services in order to facilitate the trading of loan and insurance leads is not eligible for VAT exemptions as outlined in the VAT Directive. Aredhel Darnley, a Lawyer at Hammonds LLP, examines the case and the role of the UK's VAT Act 1994.

Heartland Payment Systems - a credit card processing company in the US - announced recently that a data breach had occurred, compromising a minimum of 500 banks and an undetermined number of cards. Geoff Webb, Senior Manager of Marketing at NetIQ Corporation discusses what organisations can learn from the breach and examines what organisations can do to prevent similar breaches from arising.

The European Commission is proposing a review of invoicing rules under the VAT Directive, so that paper and electronic invoices are treated equally in VAT terms, which it hopes will stimulate growth in e-Invoicing. Stefan-Engel Flechsig, Chairman of the Legal Subgroup of the EU Expert Group on e-Invoices, examines the initiatives contributing to overcoming the legal complexities surrounding electronic invoicing.