On Friday 13 October, the European Banking authority (EBA) published its final guidelines on the procedures for payment service users to be able to submit complaints to the competent authorities concerning alleged violations of the revised directive on 'payment services' (PSD2) by service providers.
The guidelines, which will apply only to complaints to the competent authorities and excluding those made in the framework of out-of-court dispute settlement procedures, clarify the requirements concerning the channels by which complainants may submit their complaints, the information that the competent authorities must request of them and the information to be included in their responses to the complaint.
On the last of these points, the EBA considers that the competent authorities should be required to provide information on the overall competence of the authority concerned and whether the competent authority has passed the complaint on to another authority, which may be in another member state, in addition to replying to the complainant without excessive delays.
The competent authorities are also requested to carry out an aggregate public analysis including the total number of complaints received, the commonest types of complainants and the identities of the payment service most frequently complained about.
Taking into account the responses to its public consultation carried out in February 2017, the EBA has also decided to: - clarify the application of the guidelines to complaints submitted by payment service providers affected by the situation that gave rise to the complaint; - introduce a requirement for competent authorities to establish at least one digital channel for the submission of complaints that is accessible online; - extend the scope of the aggregate complaints analysis, which now also includes information on the payment services and the provisions of the PSD2 directive most frequently complained about.
The guidelines will apply from the date of entry into force of the PSD2 directive, 13 January 2018, and are available at: http://bit.ly/2zpVsKe. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)