Non-bank payment service providers – are your funds secure despite the lack of BGF?

On August 6, 2019, the Regulations of the Minister of Finance awaited by the users of payment services entered into force establishing guarantees and securing their claims against entities offering certain payment services. This will significantly increase the certainty of trading in funds not using the Bank Guarantee Fund protection.

We are talking about the Ordinance of the Minister of Finance of July 31, 2019 on the minimum insurance sum, bank guarantee sum, sum of insurance guarantee or the value of other security of user’s claims referred to in art. 61b section 1 of the Payment Services Act (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 1459)
and
Ordinance of the Minister of Finance of July 31, 2019 on the minimum insurance sum insured, the sum of the bank guarantee, the sum of the insurance guarantee or the value of other security of user’s claims referred to in art. 117a section 3 of the Payment Services Act (Journal of Laws of 2019, item 1458).

Who and what are the new rules about?

The new regulations introduce mandatory minimum insurance guarantee sums, bank guarantee sums, insurance guarantee sums and the value of other collateral for claims of users using payment transaction initiation services and account information access services. Service providers providing these services are required to establish these securities, in particular national payment institutions.

How to calculate the minimum sum for which the service provider must insure?

Providers offering payment transaction initiation services will calculate the minimum sum by counting over the last year: the value of claims received for reimbursement related to claims arising from unauthorized and incorrectly carried out transactions, the number of transactions initiated and their value and then add this to the calculated sum of the value adopted in the Regulation for the type of business by the service provider of the activity.

Similar rules will apply to entities that provide only account information access services. In turn, they will have to sum up the annual values ​​of claims for compensation, the number of available payment accounts, the number of users and add to the sum calculated in this way to the value adopted in the regulation for the certain type of business.

Forecasts

Although the new regulations introduce additional burdens for payment service providers, it should be expected that they will make the market credible and encourage new customers to use payment services.