Our #Bitesize round-up covers key recent FinTech, payments, and Open Banking-related regulatory developments in
FinTech and Payments
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- Payments system regulatory reforms including the development of a strategic plan for the payments ecosystem and measures to modernise the regulatory framework, including the Bank's regulatory powers.
- The Government's critical infrastructure reforms which specify the
Mastercard debit and credit card systems, theVisa debit and credit card systems, the EFTPOS card system and the New Payments Platform as critical infrastructure assets and would therefore impose new obligations on the central operators of these payment systems. The Reserve Bank's Review of Banknote Distribution Arrangements which examines how the banknote distribution system can remain effective, efficient, sustainable and resilient in the face of declining cash use. Bank staff will be meeting with stakeholders and will release a paper setting out stakeholder feedback in the second half of 2022.- Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) including the potential use of CBDCs on a shared platform for cross-border settlements and an upcoming partnership with the
Treasury later this year on a review of the viability of a retail CBDC. - The Review of Retail Payments Regulation and the Board's expectation that large issuers will issue dual-network debit cards (DNDCs). The Board agreed to a 3-year exemption from this expectation for a limited set of debit cards issued to children, customers whose accounts are formally managed by another person; and other vulnerable customers who explicitly request a card with restricted functionality. Large issuers can issue single-network debit cards to these customers until the end of 2024, but will be expected to issue DNDCs after that.
- mistaken internet payments;
- unauthorised transactions;
- complaints handling; and
- facility expiry dates.
- increased specialist training about crypto investment for industry, government, law enforcement and criminal intelligence;
- explicit consumer protections, financial audit powers and minimum security baselines for DCEs;
- coordination with other countries to develop an approach for de-anonymising cryptocurrency addresses for cybercrime tracing and tax evasion management;
- IFTI reporting to track the movement of illicit funds;
- increased transparency around registered DCEs and providers of blockchain- based financial products or services that hold AFSLs; and
- public education programs about the investment and cybersecurity risks related to crypto.
- Will they reside on a distributed ledger or some other form of technology we use?
- How do we ensure that the system is resilient and that it's not subject to some form of counterfeiting?
- Would these tokens be anonymous and private like banknotes so they can move around without leaving a fingerprint or would they be traceable?
- Under what circumstances would they be traceable?
- Should the tokens be backed by the central bank?
- If instead a private entity was to issue the tokens, how do we ensure that they're interoperable between various issuers and what are the collateral arrangements that would back those tokens?
- Should these tokens pay interest?
- What is the potential for these tokens to destabilise the financial system, particularly in periods of stress?
- create a tiered licensing regime for payment service providers; and
- regulate crypto-assets, including the custody arrangements for those crypto-assets.
- Firm level rules for online onboarding;
- Responsibility for online marketing;
- Capacity for surveillance and supervision of online marketing and distribution;
- Staff qualification and/or licensing requirements for online marketing;
- Ensuring compliance with third country regulations; and
- Clarity about legal entities using internet domains.
- Powers to promptly take action where websites are used to conduct illegal securities and derivatives activity and other powers effective in curbing online misconduct;
- Increasing efficient international cooperation and liaising with criminal authorities and other local and foreign partners;
- Promoting enhanced understanding by and collaboration with providers of electronic intermediary services with regard to digital illegal activities; and
- Additional efforts to address regulatory and supervisory arbitrage.
- How could sharing non-bank lending data encourage innovation or new use cases for CDR data? Are there cross-sectoral use cases that non-bank lending data can support, in particular with
Open Finance /Banking? - May the benefits of sharing non-bank lending data vary across particular consumer groups; for example, vulnerable consumers?
- Would the designation of non-bank lending improve competition between lenders, including leveling the playing field with banks, or lead to greater market efficiencies?
- If non-bank lending is designated, which entities should be designated as data holders?
- How should data holders be described in a designation instrument? Is there potential to leverage existing definitions (for example, the definition of 'registrable corporation' in the Collection of Data Act or 'credit facility' in the ASIC Act)?
- Where lending is securitised or provided to a brand owner by a white labeller, does the same entity retain the legal relationship with the customer, as well as hold the data on the loan?
- Are there differences in the data held by non-banks and banks that would require adapting the rules and standards that apply to banks so that those rules and standards would apply to non-bank lenders? If so, why?
- Are there products offered by non-bank lenders that aren't covered by the existing rules and standards applying to banking data in the CDR? Are there CDR rules and standards that apply to banking data that warrant exclusion for non-bank lenders?
- Are there any government-held datasets that would be complementary to privately-held datasets and could support possible use cases in non-bank lending?
- What is the level of standardisation across products within business finance? Are there key datasets that are common across different types of business finance products that could be usefully compared? What are the key attributes of a product that would be useful for comparison services?
- Are there privacy concerns specific to non-bank lending that should be taken into account when considering the designation of the sector?
- Do you consider the existing privacy risk mitigation requirements contained in the banking rules and standards are appropriate to manage the privacy impacts of sharing non-bank lending data?
- Are there other examples of materially enhanced information specific to the non-bank lending industry?
- What datasets would cost more for a data holder to share securely and why?
- Which entities, defined either by size or product offering, would be less suitable for CDR data holder obligations from a cost or technological sophistication point of view and why?
- What would be the likely cost of implementation and ongoing compliance with CDR data sharing obligations for your entity? Please provide detail where possible.
- What barriers to product data sharing exist for your entity or product offering?
- Please provide information on the types of systems you use and whether there is the potential to limit access to information, such as where data storage obligations are outsourced to third-parties.
- Does your business have consumers that are unable to access their account and transaction information online and, if so, what proportion of your customers are 'offline'?
The RBA's media release is available here.
Paypa Plane joined AusPayNet as its first Payment Service Provider member
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AusPayNet reported that Paypa Plane, a platform combining traditional scheduled payments and digital, data-rich and real-time payments, joined AusPayNet under the new PSP membership category.
AusPayNet also noted that its Members unanimously determined at its recent AGM to ensure that all AusPayNet Members, including the new PSP membership type, are represented on the AusPayNet Board.
AusPayNet's media release is available here.
ASIC released report on feedback in ePayments Code review
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compliance monitoring and data collection;
In
The report is available here.
ASIC's media release is available here.
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Regarding when the new regulations will be introduced,
The media article is available here.
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minimum cybersecurity standards for digital currency exchanges (DCEs);
The report is available here.
The Governor of the RBA spoke about the future of money and climate change at the Banking 2022 Conference
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What form will these tokens take?
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give effect to a new regulatory regime for stored value instruments, including stable coins and what the collateral backing for those coins should be;
On climate change,
A transcript of
IOSCO consultation on international regulatory and enforcement approaches to digitisation and new products
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The proposed policy toolkit measures relate to:
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Firm level rules for online marketing and distribution;
The proposed enforcement toolkit measures relate to:
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Proactive technology-based detection and investigatory techniques;
The consultation closed on
The consultation report is available here.
Open Banking and the Consumer Data Right
Minister formally designated the Telecommunications Sector
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The Minister notes that the designation is intended to 'allow consumers to access more accurate information about their own internet consumption, phone usage and product plans so they can more easily compare and switch between providers, encouraging more competition, lower prices and more innovative products.'
The designation is available here.
The Minister's press release is available here.
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Trusted adviser and CDR insight disclosure consents commenced
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A CDR consumer can now consent to a data holder or accredited data recipient disclosing CDR data to a trusted adviser who the CDR consumer has nominated in accordance with the requirements under the CDR regime. A CDR consumer can also consent to the disclosure of CDR insights to any specified person. CDR insights are a limited subset of CDR data used to verify the consumer's identity, account balance or credits or debits on their account.
The Competition and Consumer (Consumer Data Right) Rules 2020 are available here.
The Consumer Data Standards are available here.
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The consultation asks the following questions:
Benefits and use cases
Data holder and datasets
Privacy considerations and intellectual property
Regulatory burden and cost considerations
The consultation paper is available here.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
Ms
NSW 2000
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