EBA consults on extending the application of the Joint Committee Guidelines on complaints-handling to the new institutions under PSD2 and MCD

The European Banking Authority (EBA) launched today a public consultation to propose extending the scope of application of the existing Joint Committee (JC) Guidelines on complaints-handling to the new institutions established under the revised Payment Service Directive (PSD2) and the Mortgage Credit Directive (MCD). The proposal, which does not envisage any changes to the substance of the existing Guidelines, will ensure that an identical set of requirements for complaints-handling continues to apply to all financial institutions across the banking, investment and insurance sectors. The extension of the scope will provide consumers with the same level of protection, irrespective of which regulated product or service they are purchasing and which regulated institution they are purchasing it from. The consultation runs until 27 May 2018. 

 

The existing JC Guidelines on complaints-handling set out requirements in relation to firms' complaints management policy and function, their registration of complaints, their reporting to national competent authorities, and their assessment of, and responses to, the complaints. The Guidelines are addressed to authorities competent in their jurisdictions for supervising complaints-handling by firms, which in the banking sector include credit institutions, payment institutions and electronic money institutions, as defined in the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD), the PSD2 and the Electronic Money Directive (EMD) respectively.

 

The consultation paper proposes that the JC Guidelines should also apply to the new payment initiation service providers (PISPs) and account information service providers (AISPs) under the PSD2 and credit intermediaries and non-credit institution creditors under the MCD. In the specific case of AISPs that provide only account information, but no other payment services, the EBA proposes to apply the Guidelines only to security-related, but not to other types of, complaints, in line with related requirements set out in the PSD2 itself.

 

Since some of the new actors under the PSD2 and the MCD can be very small, comprising of one or two persons only and, the EBA proposes that competent authorities should apply the JC Guidelines in a proportionate manner, taking into account the nature, scale and complexity of the organisation of the institutions and the nature and range of the services they offer

Responses to this consultation can be sent to the EBA by clicking on the "send your comments" button on the consultation page. Please note that the deadline for the submission of comments is 27 May 2018.

 

In June 2012, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) published its ‘Guidelines on Complaints-Handling by Insurance Undertakings'. In June 2014, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and the EBA read across these Guidelines to the investment and banking sectors respectively and issued them as JC Guidelines for complaints-handling for the securities and banking sectors, under Article 16 of Regulation (EU) 1093/2010 (EBA Regulation).

 

In March 2016, Directive 2014/17/EU on credit agreements for consumers relating to residential immovable property (the Mortgage Credit Directive) started to apply and introduced requirements for credit agreements offered by credit institutions and two new types of institutions - credit intermediaries and non-credit institution creditors, which are presently not in the scope of the JC Guidelines. 

 

In January 2018, Directive (EU) 2015/2366 on payment services in the internal market (the revised Payment Services Directive) started to apply and added two new providers of payment services – account information service providers and payment initiation service providers.