“The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority is set to delay enforcement of new EU online payments regulations by more than 18 months, after warnings that the rules would hamstring online sales”, reports Nicholas Megaw in The Financial Times.
The UK’s FCA is the latest financial authority to join a series of countries – including France, Italy and Denmark – that have publicly said they favour a delay of the enforcement of Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements, currently scheduled for September 14th, 2019. The SCA rules represent the last major piece of PSD2 implementation.
The FT reports that even the Central Bank of Ireland “agreed that local regulators should work together to avoid disruption”.
It remains unclear how the European Banking Authority (EBA) will respond to the requests for a delay from its member states, considering that in an update in June it “rejected calls for a continent-wide grace period, arguing that companies had more than three years to prepare”.
However, critics of the rules argue that key technical details were not confirmed until earlier in 2019, and numerous companies have turned to national regulators to plead for more time. According to a number of industry groups, a lack of preparedness could have a sensible impact on payment transactions, potentially impeding completion of more than 25% of payments during the transition.
Last updated on April 23rd, 2023 at 07:18 pm
