Romania – considered amendment of the Emergency Government Ordinance no 113/2009
Rokas (Bucharest)
The firm is currently handling the authorisation as “Payment Institution” with NBR, of a major player in consumer lending market in Romania, while the applicable legal provisions are under discussions for further amendment. According to the legal provisions issued in this respect, the process should end by the 31st of April and any company which is not authorised by that time, shall not be able to further perform payment activities for its customers.
Such process is mainly of interest for the nonbanking financial institutions which along with their specific lending activity, offer to their customers payment services. In many cases, the two services
(lending and payment services) are connected and the first may not function without the second. We refer here to the nonbanking institutions which are granting loans to the consumers by using a card
which is now considered under the provisions of the Emergency Government Ordinance no. 113/2009 as a payment instrument which falls under the need of the respective company to be authorised by the National Bank of Romania as a payment institution See important changes that are proposed:
A. . Cooperation between the National Bank of Romania and the National Office for controlling and preventing money laundering
B. Segregation of the activities of a payment institution (PI), from the activities of a nonbanking financial institution (NFI).
C. Own funds calculation for the purpose of securing the payment institution’ activities, should be completely separated from calculations used in relation to other activities eventually performed by the payment institution
D. Provision of information from its data base, by the Credit Risk Center organized by the National Bank of Romania.
E. Priority of the users of the services provided by a payment institution, towards third parties in case of insolvency of the payment institution.