Revocation of ASPSP's Exemption from the Contingency Mechanism due to Prolonged Service Disruption

In a scenario where an incident lasting more than two consecutive weeks preventing Payment Service Users (PSUs) from initiating their payments through a dedicated interface, considering that the Account Servicing Payment Service Provider (ASPSP) has an exemption from the contingency mechanism under Regulation (EU) 2018/389, and the National Competent Authority (NCA) has been notified about the incident: Should the National Competent Authority (NCA) revoke the ASPSP's exemption from the contingency mechanism?

The contingency measures, commonly referred to as a fallback mechanism, ensures that PSUs can continue to initiate payments and access account information in the event that the dedicated interface provided by the ASPSP becomes unavailable.   Under specific circumstances, ASPSPs may be granted an exemption from this requirement by the NCA. This exemption is contingent upon the ASPSP demonstrating that its dedicated interface meets stringent availability and performance criteria. However, if the dedicated interface fails for an extended period, the reliability of the ASPSP’s systems and its adherence to regulatory obligations come into question. In a scenario where an incident causes the dedicated interface to be unavailable for more than two consecutive weeks, this extended downtime presents significant challenges. Despite requesting the NCA to revoke the exemption, an evasive response where that does not address the issue, calls into question the objectivity of the Regulation.   In the light of a prolonged incident and its serious implications, in accordance with RTS (EU) 2018/389, specifically Article 33, which addresses the contingency measures for a dedicated interface, paragraph 7: “ Competent authorities shall revoke the exemption referred to in paragraph 6 where the conditions (a) and (d) are not met by the account servicing payment service providers for more than 2 consecutive calendar weeks. Competent authorities shall inform EBA of this revocation and shall ensure that the account servicing payment service provider establishes, within the shortest possible time and at the latest within 2 months, the contingency mechanism referred to in paragraph 4. ”