The Payment Services Directive (PSD), implemented in all EU Member/EEA States on 1 November 2009, established a modern and comprehensive set of rules applicable to all payment services in Europe. Cross-border payments became as easy, efficient and secure as national payments within a Member State. It also guarantees users of payment services a high level of protection in particular by introducing a number of obligations in so far as the provision of detailed information by providers of payment services to their customers is concerned.
Link to PSD Brochure
Link to Directive No. 1: The Provision and Use of Payment
Services
Consultative Paper on Retail
Payment Services Policy and the Payment Services Directive On 28 January 2008, the Central Bank of Malta published a consultative paper intended to guide the Bank’s future initiatives in relation to payment services and to inform Malta’s future transposition of the Payment Services Directive. Developments in the Bank's retail payment services policy, coupled with transposition of the Payment Services Directive and implementation of SEPA will considerably change the payment services market landscape in Malta and will affect the business processes of all enterprises which process their own payments or the payments of others. The Central Bank of Malta invited comments on this consultative paper up till the end of April 2008. The Bank has compiled a Report on the consultation with a summary of the responses received.
The consultation on retail payment services policy and the PSD was satisfactory. Eleven written responses were received from a variety of stakeholders, both from Malta and from other EU countries. As the Bank actively encouraged various stakeholders to submit coordinated responses through the constituted bodies or associations which represent them, it is clear that the number of organizations who took part in the elaboration of these responses was significantly larger than the number of responses actually received. A minority of respondents answered all the questions asked, with the majority focusing on those questions of particular interest to their line of activity. However, a majority of respondents also went beyond the questions put directly and expressed other views or concerns, often submitting separate detailed documents addressing issues they perceived to be of particular relevance. The Bank also had the opportunity to engage with a wide variety of interested parties, and received a substantial amount of constructive comments and feedback during information sessions, seminars and bilateral or multilateral meetings organised or addressed by members of its staff and its senior officials. During the consultation period, the Bank (along with the MFSA) also attended meetings of the Payment Services Directive Transposition Group (PSDTG) set up by DG Internal Market of the European Commission, along with the regulators from all other EU member states (including Norway) responsible for the transposition of the PSD within their respective national context and the ECB. The PSDTG seeks to come to a common interpretation of the various provisions of the PSD, in particular those lacking clarity or open to a certain degree of interpretation, in order to ensure its harmonised transposition into national law.
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