Included in this issue: Singapore to develop common QR code for payments; FCA campaign about PPI complaints deadline and more...

UK

FCA campaign about PPI complaints deadline

The FCA has published a press release announcing a new campaign designed to create awareness of the deadline to make a complaint about payment protection insurance (PPI). The FCA has introduced a deadline of 29 August 2019 to prompt customers into deciding whether to check if they had PPI and whether they want to make a complaint. The campaign is being paid for by the 18 firms, including banks, building societies and credit card providers, who had the most PPI complaints. Firms have also agreed to a number of steps to ensure that the complaints process is as easy as possible for their customers. The FCA also highlights the start of a new basis for complaining about PPI, meaning customers could be entitled to compensation, even if they were not missold the insurance. If a customer has complained about PPI previously, and had the complaint rejected, they may be entitled to compensation if the provider earned a high level of commission from selling PPI.

FCA, 29 August 2017

BoE, PRA, FCA and PSR MoU on UK payment systems - second annual review

The Bank of England (BoE) has made an announcement on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that sets out the high-level framework that regulatory authorities use to cooperate with one another in relation to payment systems in the UK. The BOE say that the MoU is working well and they have identified a number of areas to further improve cooperation and coordination which are largely procedural in nature and should be implemented over the coming year.

BoE, 23 August 2017

Worldwide

Singapore to develop common QR code for payments

Singapore is planning to develop a common QR code that will facilitate payments among different schemes, e-wallets and banks. The country's new Payments Council has set up an industry task force made up of banks, payment schemes, QR service providers and government agencies to put together standardised specifications for the code by the end of the year. The council argues that QR codes offer a cheaper and less infrastructure-heavy alternative to debit and credit card schemes, making them more feasible for smaller cash-based merchants. However, in order to avoid the fragmentation caused by several proprietary QR codes, a common scheme is needed. In April local banks, DBS and OCBC, revealed plans to introduce QR code-based payments in offline stores in a joint project with national payments processor Nets. The new taskforce will set out specifications to accept both domestic and international payment schemes as well as outline a governance structure and implementation strategy.

Finextra, 30 August 2017