Volume: 2 Issue: 5
(May 2008)

News

The UK Government has outlined changes to the way it plans to implement the Payment Services Directive (PSD), following responses to a December 2007 policy consultation document, however warned that 'the interpretation of specific provisions within the Directive will… ultimately be for the Courts to decide'. / read more

Institutions, service providers and systems should work together to mitigate the risk that interdependency poses to the security and efficiency of the global payment infrastructure, warns a 4 June report from the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPPS). / read more

MasterCard Europe is 'temporarily repealing' its MasterCard and Maestro intra-EEA cross-border consumer card interchange fees from 21 June, however will pursue a Court of First Instance appeal against a European Commission ruling that the fees constitute restrictive business practices. / read more

Features

Kenya's largest mobile network operator, Safaricom, successfully floated 25% of its equity in a public offer on the Nairobi Stock Exchange in early June, the largest ever Initial Public Offering (IPO) in sub-Saharan Africa. Much of Safaricom's success may be attributable to its M-PESA mobile payment service, which is operated in partnership with Vodafone. / read more

The Payment Services Directive is expected to be transposed into Member State legislation by November 2009. Ruth Wandhöfer of Citi Global Transaction Services, who is also Chair of the Expert Group on the transposition of the PSD, examines its scope, some of the remaining implementation issues and the implications it will have. / read more

The High Court ruled that unauthorised overdraft charges can be assessed for fairness under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, in a 24 April judgment. Rachpal Thind and Vanessa Lashmore-Lloyd, of Sidley Austin LLP, examine the implications of the court's conclusions. / read more

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has blocked an application by eBay to restrict payments made on the online auction site to PayPal, a company owned by eBay. In this article, Roger Featherston, Natasha Cox and Jaani Riordan, of Mallesons Stephen Jaques, consider the implications of this preliminary decision. / read more

Prepaid technology has the potential to open e-commerce and remittance products to the unbanked, however its potential could be limited through over-regulation. David Birch, Director of Consult Hyperion, highlights how legislation applied to prepaid products, designed to combat terrorism and money laundering, could stifle the development of the prepaid sector and asks if the amount stored on the prepaid product should determine when this legislation should start to apply. / read more

The Financial Services Authority has produced a Data Security in Financial Services report, which provides best practice guidelines on data protection for firms regulated by the FSA. Tim Wright and Dominic Hodgkinson, of Pillsbury Withrop Shaw Pittman LLP, examine the guidelines and the FSA's powers to fine firms for data protection offences, powers it has recently used to fine Merchant Securities Group £77,000. / read more

About Payments & FinTech Lawyer

The monthly publication covering legal, regulatory and policy developments relating to the fast-moving payments and FinTech sectors. Key topics include mobile payments, e-money, prepaid and other payment cards, online banking, digital currencies such as Bitcoin, card fraud and other cyber crime, RegTech, robo-advice, P2P lending, and crowdfunding, as well as regulatory regimes such as the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), the Payment Accounts Directive, and the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive / read more