In Summary: Vixio Live's March Regulatory Roundup

On the first Monday of every month, our Vixio experts gather to host an episode of our LinkedIn Live series, Vixio Live.

Using our Horizon Scanning tool, which captures every event indicative of regulatory change relevant to the payments industry, they break down the biggest regulatory changes that have happened during the previous month. In this blog, we highlight three of the key updates they discussed in the latest episode.

March: A Regulatory Roundup

In March 2024, according to Vixio’s horizon scanning tool there were 172 new regulatory updates relevant to the global payments industry, 55 of which carry immediate or near-term action. In terms of regulatory deadlines, we saw 46 effective dates and 38 response deadlines.

During the session, our Senior Journalist, Jimmie Franklin, and Senior Business Development Manager, Luke Baker, unpacked some of these, one region at a time:

Jimmie, who covers UK / Europe, updated us on...slowing down fast payments if fraud is suspected. This can go on until the end of the fourth business day. Really, what the government are doing is putting sand in the brakes of faster payments. Proposed by the government to tackle fraud issues. Around the time of the global fraud summit. Some in the payments world will welcome this because it means they can get a better grip on fraud, but there are risks. What if your payment is legitimate and you can’t make the payment and end up getting  a negative impact, such as a hit to your credit rating or a charge for a payment  being late?

In Europe, he touched on MiCA:

- On March 27th, the Netherlands introduced a bill to the Dutch parliament to transpose MiCA into Dutch law.

- On March 12th the Hungarian government submitted a draft law to transpose MiCA into Hungarian law.

- On March 6th the Norwegian ministry of finance launched a consultation on the implementation of MiCA.

And DORA:

- The Joint European Supervisory Authority published a series of responses to consultations on March 12th,:

- On specifying elements related to threat led penetration tests (TLPTs).

- On specifying the elements which a financial entity needs to determine and assess when subcontracting ICT services supporting critical or important functions.

- On the content of the notification and reports for major incidents and significant cyber threats and determining the time limits for reporting major incidents.

In the US, Senior Business Development Manager, Luke Baker informed us that...on March 5th, the CFPB published its final rule amending Regulation Z to address credit card penalty fees charged by issuers with one million or more open accounts, establishing a $8 safe harbour threshold. This rule eliminates higher fees for subsequent violations within the same billing cycle or the next six, and annual CPI adjustments don't apply to this $8 amount. It aims to ensure late fees are reasonable and proportional to the violation, impacting only larger card issuers, with specific definitions for smaller issuers maintaining previous safe harbour thresholds.

In APAC, The Monetary Authority of Singapore extended restrictions on money remittances from Singapore to China until 30th September 2024, except in certain cases (essentially the freeze is on non-bank and non-card channels). This was done following some reports that remittance transfers were being frozen once the money reaches China.

And, in Latin America, The Central Reserve Bank of Peru (BCRP) has issued Circular No. 009-2024 containing the Regulation on quality levels of interoperable payment services provided by suppliers, agreements, payment systems and technology providers.

Want to know more?

Watch the full recording here:

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