Web Payment Interest Group - Regulatory Issues Task Force

There is no global regulatory compendium about payment services, to read and to comply with. And regulation is continuously moving. Therefore, there is no other way for an efficient and productive mitigation of risks about regulatory issues, but in seeking practical solutions, related to to local requirements.

The regulatory architecture relies upon many “jurisdictions” (a geographical area where a practical authority (is) granted to a legal body to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility – Wikipedia). We will have to extend awareness among the more of these jurisdictions. It requires and means to produce documents and diagrams easy to understand for non-technical people. This basic explanatory documentation will help to get in touch with regulators and to find individuals willing to pay attention to both regulation and technology and to help for an easy, positive and compliant adoption of the spec. In addition to the introductory wiki, presentations or meetings with regulatory bodies will help to reach our goals.

A first mapping of main jurisdictions

Approach statement

Mapping all the rules and regulations all around the world is going to be neither feasible, nor useful… The Task Force doesn't want to make a deep and legal inventory of such rules. The ambition doesn't go further than to make available for the TF, a relevant first level of useful information, a kind of a « survival kit » about the major Regulatory Issues to be taken into account, in each of the main jurisdictions. It may mean:

• A basic inventory of the main Regulations,
• A list of the Supervisory Authorities (providing links toward relevant repositories of such relevant Central Banks or Oversight Commissions, ...)

An attempt for mapping regulatory issues shall start through mapping the different jurisdictions ( the practical authority granted to a legal body to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility - Wikipedia) that are relevant for payment services.

For each of these jurisdictions and inside this area, it is easy to determine:

• The Regulatory Authority that is vested with the power to enact rules for the activity of Payment services
• The Supervisory Authority in charge of the oversight of payment services (authorization, management and supervision of the players and playing rules)
• The corpus and basic ressources gathering rules and regulations to comply with, within this jurisdiction, for Payment services (aka hyperlinks toward key regulations, supervisor's websites, ...)

Scope and goals of the first mapping

Geographically

In order to keep such an inventory efficiently usable and feasable, it seems relevant to limit the focus of the list at a high "regional" level. For instance, the United States of America should be considered as a single main jurisdiction even if each state retains legal power for trade, commerce or banking and financial activities' oversight. Or the European Union (the EU) may be considered as a Single Area for Payment Services (the SEPA Aera which is broader than the EU stricto sensu) albeit that each national State has its own supervory authority (coordinated in the ESCB). A list of the local sub-jurisdictions may be sufficient for the first attempt of mapping.

Up to now, this mapping started with 4 areas.

• the EU: Jean-Yves Rossi (CANTON-Consulting)
• China: Max Dapeng Liu (Alibaba)
• South Africa: Adrian Hope-Bailie (Ripple)
• Russia and CIS countries (Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, etc.): Evgeny Vinogradov (Yandex)

But volunteers are still expected for other areas (USA, Japan, South America,...)! The TF looks for possible additional contributors, able to bring understanding about the Regulatory Landscape in:

• Japan
• The main regional Monetary Unions in Africa
• Any harmonized systems by WCO, Payment Services and/or Monetary Unions, vested with the power to regulate Payment services on its realm

Level of detail

The table below introduces for each jurisdiction: its geographical scope, the name of the Regulation Authorities, the basic principles of the Payment Services' regulation, some links toward useful documentation and the name of the contact person in the TF.

Main jurisdictions listed

For each of these jurisdictions, we list a member of the Task Force as a point of contact. Please get in touch with him for any possible question or if you want to contribute. For the TF, to be able to enlarge the network of experts intersted in participating, will be a positive achievement per se.

Focus and Sub levels

In a second phase, the TF might tighten focus for some jurisdictions where relevant questions need a special attention. This focus should gather some additional stuff and documentation about the local rules and constraints, especially for the key points selected from the check-list of issues that have been identified as critical in this jurisdiction.

In some cases, for some large jurisdictions where sub-levels may create specific mandatory additional rules, it could happen to be useful to try to deepen the level of detail, for the different sub-regions, for some specific topics.

As a first sample of such regional focus, a first wkiki as been published for European Economical Area (or, considering payment services, the SEPA market): SEPA Focus - Regulatory TF .

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