Fund Transfer Regulations – Notification Requirement for Payment Service Providers (PSPs)

“PSPs that repeatedly fail to provide required information on transfer of funds”

The Central Bank of Ireland (the Central Bank) is the competent authority in Ireland for the purposes of Regulation (EU) 2015/847 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2015, as supplemented by S.I. No. 608/2017 (EU) (the Funds Transfer Regulation (FTR)), which sets out rules on the information on payers and payees which must accompany transfers of funds in order to help prevent, detect and investigate money laundering and terrorist financing.

Under the FTR, payment service providers (to include intermediary payment service providers ‘IPSP’) (PSPs) must ensure the information on the payer and/or the payee is not missing or incomplete.  PSPs are also required to notify the Central Bank upon identifying a repeatedly failing PSP. 

A PSP is a natural or legal person whose business includes services that constitutes a transfer of funds, as more fully defined in Article 3 of the FTR. ‘Transfer of funds’ is defined in Article 3(9) of the FTR.

This page explains the steps, which PSPs should take, to meet the notification requirement under the FTR.

If a PSP has identified another PSP as repeatedly failing to provide required information (e.g. the payer’s name) a notification should be submitted to the Central Bank at the following email address: [email protected]

The notification should include:

• The name of the PSP identified as repeatedly failing to provide the required information;
• The country in which the PSP is authorised;
• The nature of the breach, including:
  • i) The frequency of transfers of funds with missing information,
  • ii) The period of time during which the breaches were identified and
  • iii) Any reasons the PSP may have given to justify their repeated failure to provide the required information;
• Details of the steps the reporting PSP has taken.

The material provided need only be a brief summary.  A report template for submission is provided here . This notification should be made without undue delay, and no later than three months after identifying the repeatedly failing PSP.

Once the Central Bank has received notifications, it will assess what if any action is required based on the information provided, and it will pass them on to the European Banking Authority.

Further guidance on measures PSPs can take to meet the Regulation’s requirements, including considerations for PSPs in determining what may constitute a repeated failing by a PSP, is provided in the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) Joint Guidelines.

Any queries in relation to the requirements set out above, can also be submitted to the email address: [email protected]