On 12 October 2023, the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) published an updated penalty statement.
The updated penalty statement will help firms more easily understand how the PSR determines whether to impose a financial penalty and its amount.
In March, the PSR consulted on the following changes to its penalty statement to:
- Combine its three penalty statements into one.
- Change the way in which it considers the duration of a compliance failure and how it takes account of revenue when calculating penalties.
- Clarify what it means by senior management.
- Add further clarity when it considers a compliance failure is deliberate or reckless.
- Reinforce the principle that penalties should disincentivise compliance failures.
After considering all feedback received to its consultation and recent legal developments, the PSR has decided to implement all but one change. The PSR will proceed with its general proposal of adding clarity around how it identifies deliberateness and recklessness. But it is no longer proposing that awareness of a risk can be assessed on an objective basis, when considering whether a compliance failure is reckless.
The PSR has produced a comparison version of the revised penalty statement (from March and October 2023). Additions are in green and underlined. Deleted text is set in red and shown struck through. It has been prepared by the PSR to assist stakeholders.
The PSR has also published a response to stakeholder submissions to its earlier consultation.