On March 14, 2018, the U.K. Payment Systems Regulator published a consultation on a review of the six formal General Directions (Directions GD 1-6) and one Specific Direction (SD1) it adopted in 2015 under the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013. These Directions were all intended to improve access to and the governance of payment systems in the U.K. GD1 sets out the PSR's expectations of regulated participants in payment systems to have an open and co-operative relationship with it. GD2, GD3 and SD1 set out requirements on operators relating to access to interbank and card payment systems and GD4-6 set out requirements for the governance of interbank payment systems.
Since the Directions were adopted in 2015, the PSR has gained experience of applying the Directions in practice and there have been a number of market and legislative changes, including the introduction of the Payment Services Regulations 2017. The PSR considers that the Directions should now be reviewed to reflect these market and legislative developments and to ensure that they remain relevant, proportionate and correctly targeted. The consultation paper sets out each of the Directives along with the PSR's proposals to revoke, revise or retain the Direction in its current form.
The PSR invites comments on the proposals by June 8, 2018.
The consultation paper (PSR CP18/1) is available at: https://www.psr.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/PDF/PSR-CP18-1-Review-of-Directions-March-2018.pdf.
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