Delegated regulation 2018/72 - Supplement to Regulation 2015/751 on interchange fees for card-based payment transactions with regard to regulatory technical standards establishing the requirements to be complied with by payment card schemes and processing entities to ensure the application of independence requirements in terms of accounting, organisation and decision-making process - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 13/1

In order to specify the requirements ensuring separation of payment card schemes and processing entities, it is appropriate to define certain terms in relation to the accounting, organisation and the decision making process of payment card schemes and processing entities, irrespective of the legal form adopted by those entities.

Payment card schemes and processing entities should have accounting processes in place that enable them to produce financial information on separated profit and loss accounts and explanatory notes to that financial information. Those requirements should not replace or amend accounting principles and standards or requirements concerning the annual financial statements that already apply to payment card schemes and processing entities.

For that purpose, it is appropriate to specify how expenses and revenues should be allocated under those accounting processes. Those accounting processes should be duly documented, in particular in relation to transfers of funds between payment card schemes and processing entities.

In order to ensure independence, payment card schemes and participating processing entities should produce financial information at least annually and that information should be reviewed by an independent auditor. That information as well as its review should be made available to competent authorities upon their request to enable them to ensure enforcement of independence requirements.

Payment card schemes and processing entities that are not separate legal persons should at least be organised as different internal business units. Staff of payment card schemes and staff of the processing entities, including senior management, should be independent and accommodated in separated workspaces equipped with restricted controlled access. To promote the independence of senior managers when two entities are part of the same group and to prevent the practice of ‘revolving doors’, senior managers should be prohibited from taking on work for the other side of the business for a minimum duration of one year after they have left the entity they were working for.

Staff of payment card schemes should only be allowed to perform tasks related to the design, update or implementation of processing services where specific conditions ensuring compliance with independence requirements are met.

To avoid any incentives for payment card schemes or for processing entities to provide each other, via their staff, with preferential treatment or privileged information not available to their competitors, remuneration frameworks for staff of payment card schemes and of processing entities should not be based directly or indirectly on the economic performance of the processing entities or the payment card schemes. Remuneration policies should be made fully available to competent authorities upon their request.

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