The consultation paper will outline what banks and other account servicing payment service providers (ASPSPs) need to know and the information they will need to submit when applying to the FCA for an exemption from rules that otherwise apply under EU payment services standards.
Those standards generally require ASPSPs to provide a fallback option allowing third party companies in the payment services market to service their customers when the main interface they use is down or underperforming.
The FCA said the position it will take in the consultation paper will "reflect" the one outlined by the European Banking Authority (EBA) in a recent draft guidance paper and opinion the EBA issued.
Under the EU's second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), ASPSPs are required to enable account information service providers (AISPs) and payment initiation service providers (PISPs) to access payment account information they hold where customers consent to such access.
Regulatory technical standards (RTS) on ‘strong customer authentication and common and secure open standards of communication’ set out in more detail what ASPSPs need to do to facilitate those access rights.
Under those standards, which will not apply until 14 September 2019, ASPSPs must either enable third party access to the data through the same interfaces they use for interacting with customers, or alternatively develop a new 'dedicated interface' for that purpose. A range of safeguards are outlined in the standards to ensure that the access rights of AISPs and PISPs are respected. This includes a requirement for a fallback option to be made available.
However, the RTS contain an exemption from the fallback option requirement.
ASPSPs can ask national regulators to apply the exemption if they develop a dedicated interface for the third parties to use in line with the RTS requirements, including in relation to design and testing, and where that interface has been "widely used" for at least three months and any problem with it has been resolved "without undue delay".
The FCA said it intends to make its exemption assessment regime available "from early 2019". The regulator endorsed the draft guidance the EBA issued on the exemption provisions and its additional opinion on how the RTS apply.
"We are supportive of the views contained in the EBA opinion and encourage firms and API initiatives to consider these views," the FCA said. "If the final version of the [EBA] guidelines is the same as the published draft, and subject to our own consultation process, we would expect to comply with the guidelines."
"We plan to consult on changes to our guidance and rules to reflect the RTS, opinion and draft guidelines during the summer. This consultation will set out the proposed process and level of information we require from firms to make our exemption assessment. We expect to be able to make assessments from early 2019. As the RTS will apply from 14 September 2019, we will aim to respond to firms’ exemption requests promptly," it said.