United Kingdom (and EU regulation)

PSR annual plan and budget for 2017/18

By Simon Lovegrove (UK) and Albert Weatherill (UK) on March 31, 2017 Posted in Regulation and compliance, United Kingdom

The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has published its annual plan and budget for 2017/18.

The PSR has confirmed that its budget for 2017/18 will be £12 million.

Alongside its wider work programme, the annual plan mentions three particular areas of focus for the PSR in 2017/18:

working in consumers’ interests. In 2016, the PSR published the findings of its review into authorised push payments scams, concluding that further work was needed to tackle the problem. As well as continuing this work, the PSR will take a broader look at its role in respect of consumer protection and identify what, if anything, it may need to do in this area;
the increasing use of payments data. The PSR will work on identifying and understanding the developing issues associated with payment data and their implications for consumer protection, particularly in respect of how the information is shared and handled. The PSR will work with other relevant public bodies to understand the role it should play alongside other regulators; and
changing competitive dynamics. The PSR will look to answer a number of questions such as: how the economics of the sector are changing, where competitive advantages may come from in the future and the underlying implications for market structure and competition.

In terms of current work, the annual plan also sets out details of the PSR’s existing projects. This includes the work of the Payments Strategy Forum and more specifically, its recommendation to create a single payment system operator (PSO) to reduce costs and complexities of multiple PSOs. The PSR will also publish in 2017/18 the final remedies that it believes need to be made to reform the provision of payment systems infrastructure in the UK. The PSR will also continue to work as the lead UK regulator for the Interchange Fee Regulation, set out how it will exercise its powers to monitor the relevant elements of the second Payment Services Directive and continue its work looking at contactless mobile payments.

View PSR annual plan and budget for 2017/18, 29 March 2017