Brexit and passporting the activities of the national payment institution to Great Britain

Payment institutions that are passporting their business to the UK will have the option to continue providing payment services in the UK. The British regulator – Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a document showing that the operations of above mentioned payment institutions will also be safe and secured in the case of the so-called no-deal Brexit

What will happen than on 29^th of March 2019 on 11 pm?

Above mentioned date and hour precisely indicate the end of a complicated process called Brexit.

Entities, which passport their business activity do the United Kingdom, no later than on 28^th of March 2019 will have to notify FCA of their intention to continue providing payment services in the United Kingdom within the so-called temporary permissions regime. According to the statement of FCA notification is supposed ot be merely a formality – a simple message sent to the FCA as an online form. Notification will result in the transition to a temporary regime, which is intended to be applicable until the end of 2020. According to the nomenclature of FCA, this process is so-called Part 4a permission based on the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA).

When temporary permission regime will be applicable payment institutions, which passport their business activity to the Untied Kingdom:

• will be able to continue their current activities, to the extent resulting from the permission obtained from their home regulator,
• will obtain from the FCA the so-called „landing slot”, i.e. a time window in which they will have to submit an application for authorization by the British regulator,
• will be taken under full supervision of the British authorities, in particular under full supervision of FCA.

The transition to the supervision of FCA under the temporary regime also means the need to apply certain provisions of British law. The list of regulations implementation of which by certain institutions is still the subject of discussion between FCA, PRA (Prudential Regulation Authority) and market participants.

Taking the above into consideration, it seems that there is still a chance for effective passport notifications by entities which intend to enter their products on the British market.

We encourage You to contact our Law Firm which offers services in the scope of:

• making notifications of passporting of payment institutions,

verification of the correctness of filed notifications of passporting (including the possibility of continuing operations in the United Kingdom from 29^th of March 2019).