18 November 2014

ECB: Guide for the assessment of direct debit schemes against the oversight standards

Oversight standards for direct debit schemes focus on the security and efficiency of direct debit payments. This guide supports a comprehensive and efficient assessment against these standards.

This assessment guide is intended both for the direct debit schemes’ governance authorities (GAs) responsible for ensuring compliance, and for the overseers conducting the oversight of both national and international direct debit schemes based on the Eurosystem oversight standards for direct debit schemes. It has been updated with the incorporation of the “Recommendations for the security of internet payments” that were approved by the Governing Council in January 2013 as well as the “Assessment guide for the security of internet payments” of February 2014.

Certain requirements coming from these two documents may be directly addressed to payment service providers (PSPs). As explained in the “Harmonised oversight approach and oversight standards for payment instruments”, the Eurosystem intends to avoid overlaps and duplication of work between the oversight standards for payment instruments and other oversight activities or activities carried out by supervisory bodies. Accordingly, overseers may consider relevant assessments or activities of supervisory bodies when conducting their assessment of those specific requirements.

The assessment guide outlines the general requirements that overseen direct debit schemes should follow in order to provide the general business and statistical information needed, and to respond properly to all assessment questions (AQs), following the specific oversight guidelines on what should be expected by the overseers for each AQ. In principle, the direct debit schemes are expected to answer each of the AQs with a “Y” or “N”, providing sufficient justification and evidence, and attaching supporting information and documents.

This assessment guide enables the overseers to be transparent towards the market concerning the oversight assessment process and should also help to avoid disagreements and misinterpretations across countries. As a result, this assessment guide provides the overseer with reasonable assurance that the AQs were answered appropriately.

Finally, it should be used as a guide for determining the direct debit schemes’ level of observance for each of the oversight standards and will serve as a broad layout for the final oversight report.

Full guide

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