Australian Council of Financial Regulators consults on changes to Stored-Value Facilities Regulation
By Jim Bulling, Felix Charlesworth and Edwin Tan
The Australian Council of Financial Regulators (CFR) today published an Issues Paper reviewing the regulatory regime of stored-value facilities including purchased payment facilities (PPFs). The CFR comprises regulators such as APRA, ASIC and the RBA.
PPFs enable funds to be stored for the purpose of making future payments and include mobile wallet services and prepaid cards. PPF providers must be licensed and supervised by APRA or otherwise rely on an exemption from complying with the legislative requirements. The RBA has declared several class exemptions for PPFs, including the “limited-value facilities” exemption for PPFs with payment obligations of $10 million or under.
To date, PayPal is the only entity licensed and supervised by APRA as a PPF provider and only one entity has obtained individual exemption from the RBA. These results support arguments that the current framework is too complicated, deters potential new entrants and imposes significant compliance costs.