In April the PSR consulted on its FSBRA and IFR fee levels, the treatment of operators which also act as card-issuing or acquiring PSPs and its proposed approach to handling its 2015/16 budget underspend. The PSR also took some decisions on how its FSBRA annual funding requirement would be allocated, and issued some fees rules which took effect from 15 April 2016.
Why is the PSR publishing this document?
This document forms the final part of the PSR's annual cycle of fees for 2016/17.
PS16/17: PSR regulatory fees 2016/17[1] (PDF)
What are the fees for 2016/17?
The PSR's Annual Funding Requirement (AFR) for the year 2016/17 will be £15.2 million. The PSR will be splitting this across the PSR's FSBRA and IFR functions as follows:
- £13.7 million to fund our FSBRA and concurrent competition functions and activities
- £1.5 million to fund our IFR functions and activities
Who should read this document?
This document is relevant to participants in regulated payment systems under FSBRA, IFR regulated persons and any PSPs which operate in the UK.
What do I need to know?
For FSBRA the PSR have decided to follow the same approach as adopted in its policy statement for the year 2015/16[2]. Its FSBRA AFR will be allocated equally across the regulated pan-UK payment systems: Bacs, CHAPS, the cheque systems (C&C/NICC), FPS, LINK, MasterCard and Visa.
For IFR the PSR have adopted the three-tier approach to the allocation of the IFR AFR as originally proposed in its December 2015 consultation[3]. This is as follows:
- equal AFR allocation across the larger IFR card payment systems with more than 10 million relevant UK transactions (this applies to American Express, MasterCard and Visa)
- those with more than 100,000 and less than 10 million relevant UK transactions would pay a flat fee (this applies to Diners Club)
- systems with less than 100,000 relevant UK transactions have no payment allocation and pay no fee for 2016/17 (this applies to JCB and Union Pay International)
What did we decide for the proposals we consulted on in April 2016?
- Operators of card payment systems that also act as an acquiring or card issuing PSP will be liable to pay the entire PSR fee allocation for that card system
- The August and September payment deadlines for both our FSBRA and IFR fees will be postponed by one month
- PSPs who paid PSR regulatory fees in 2015/16 and are also liable to pay FSBRA fees in 2016/17 16 will receive a credit reflecting the amount of the 2015/16 underspend which we are returning to fee-payers. This will be included in the invoice they receive from operators for their 2016/17 PSR regulatory fees and is calculated proportionately to their 2015/16 fee