HM Treasury has published a policy paper containing information about how the UK Government has met its obligation to implement the Payment Accounts Directive (PAD) by 18 September 2016. Points of interest include:

  • in order to implement the PAD the UK Government made the Payment Accounts Regulations 2015 (PARs) that came into force on 18 September 2016;
  • the FCA and the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) have been appointed as competent authorities under the PARs. The FCA is responsible for monitoring and enforcing the PAR’s requirements on payment service providers while the PSR is responsible for designating and monitoring alternative switching schemes;
  • the Money Advice Service (MAS) also has duties under the PARs. In particular, the MAS is required to provide consumers with access, free of charge, to a website comparing fees charged by payment service providers for the services most commonly associated with payment accounts;
  • the measures concerning the transparency and comparability of fees related to payment accounts that are used for day-to-day payment transactions will come into force at a later date, once the European Commission has adopted draft regulatory technical standards to standardise terms and definitions to describe the key services that are linked to payment accounts and subject to a fee;
  • the PARs has designated the Current Account Switch Service, operated by Bacs, as an alternative switching arrangement; and
  • the UK Government has designated the nine largest providers of current accounts in the UK under the PARs. This means that the nine banks are legally required to offer basic bank accounts to eligible customers from 18 September 2016. The nine banks are: Barclays, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank, Co-operative Bank, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group (including Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands), Nationwide, Royal Bank of Scotland (including Natwest and Ulster Bank brands), Santander and TSB.

The FCA published final rules and guidance concerning the transposition of the PAD on 2 August 2016. Our blog entry can be found here. A transposition note for the UK implementation of the PAD was published in November 2015, our blog is here.

View HM Treasury policy paper on UK implementation of Payment Accounts Directive, 18 September 2016