Launch of the EBA Register of Payment Institutions (PIs) and Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs) under PSD2
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On 18 March 2019, the European Banking Authority (EBA) launched its central electronic register under the Payments Services Directive (PSD2). The register is providing information on several thousand PIs and EMIs and agents authorised or registered within the European Economic Area countries (EEA). Its objective is to increase transparency and ensure a high level of consumer protection within the European Single Market.
The register is established based on Article 15(1) PSD2 that requires the EBA to "develop, operate and maintain an electronic central register that contains information as notified by the competent authorities".
The register has been developed in accordance with the Commission Technical Standards with regard to the details and structure of the information to be notified, in the field of payment services, by competent authorities to the EBA (Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/410) and the Commission Regulatory Technical Standards setting technical requirements on development, operation and maintenance of the electronic central register (Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/411) both dated 29 November 2018, which are based on the requirements of the draft RTS and ITS on the EBA Register under PSD2, which were submitted to the European Commission in December 2017.
The register allows any interesting person to access information, among others, on the identity of authorised PIs and EMIs, the country of establishment of these providers and the services they provide and information on passporting, i.e. the services provided in Host Member States.
National competent authorities (NCAs) provide the information contained in the central register of the EBA and are responsible for keeping regularly that information updated and at least once per day, subject to changes in their national registers. The latest update time is displayed on the register in order for public users of the register to be aware that there may be a discrepancy between the information contained on the file and the information contained on the actual register.
It should be noted that three competent authorities (Ireland, Romania and Sweden) have not submitted any data to the central register of the EBA yet and are expected to do so "soon". Besides, due to the large volume of agents (more than 100,000), the register is also not completely updated yet and several authorities will be uploading this specific data throughout March 2019.
It is made clear by the EBA that it is responsible only for the accurate reproduction of the information received by competent authorities for each natural or legal person included in the register, while responsibility for the accuracy of that information lies with the competent authorities at national level. Besides, the EBA stresses that this Register has no legal significance and confers no rights in law (e.g., if an unauthorised institution is inadvertently included in the Register, its legal status is in no way altered; similarly, if an institution has inadvertently been omitted from the Register, the validity of its authorisation will not be affected.)
Public users can search here the central register of the EBA free of charge, as well as download the whole content of the register in a machine-readable format directly from this website.
