New Payment Services Regulations

On 1 November 2009 the new Payment Services Regulations (PSRs) came into effect.

The PSRs require that non-bank payment service providers, such as Moneycorp, be either registered or authorised by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

As of 1 November 2009, such businesses are now known as Payment Institutions (PIs). We are pleased to announce that as of November 1 2009, Moneycorp is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority for the provision of payment services (click here to see a full list of our FSA permissions).

The PSRs establish certain rules governing how authorised PIs provide payment services where both the payer and the payee are located within the European Economic Area (EEA). These rules are designed, in part, to ensure customer protection.

Authorised PIs will be required to safeguard client funds they hold in relation to an electronic payment.

They will also have to meet stringent criteria set by the FSA in terms of corporate governance, solvency and risk identification and management.

What does it mean for our customers?

In reality, the impact on our customers will be very limited as we have consistently operated under extremely tight self-imposed policies and procedures with regard to customer funds and  services. Our systems and processes also undergo regular inspections by independent ISO auditors, as part of our ISO 9000 certification.

Unfortunately, the PSRs do mean that we can no longer instruct overseas banks in the EEA to charge any beneficiary bank fees to us, the payer when we send payments in an EEA currency. Therefore, whilst we will continue to guarantee that the full amount will be transferred by us, we cannot guarantee that the beneficiary bank will not then make a subsequent charge and we would recommend that our customers contact their beneficiary bank for clarification on such charges.

Click here to view our updated terms and conditions, which will apply from 1 November 2009.

We will provide updates on our FSA application here.

Click here to view all of our FSA permissions.