The Phone-paid Services Authority (PSA) has set out it’s FY 2018-19 budget for consultation.
The operational budget is £3,849,585, the same as the previous year but with an estimated market size reduction of £20.5m represents an increase to 0.94% of the cost of regulation to the companies operating in the market.
PSA have kept the levy to the funding networks the same at 0.44% of outpayments by utilising fine revenue for the other 0.5%
While the budget is a real-time reduction on previous years, aimm believes that there may be costs and manpower levels being sustained through roles that may no longer be applicable, the use of technology, particularly consumer facing is outdated and the sustaining of the position of being the “de-facto go-to party” for consumers for complaint resolution (which is not their role) is overdue a review as this drives regulatory changes that add constraint to innovation and new services. aimm believes that PSA should be taking dramatic steps alongside industry to resolve the significant consumer support issues that exist instead of constraining how digital merchants conduct their business.
aimm also believes that monitoring, compliance and regulation is being performed by too many parties, indicating an ineffective overall regulatory environment, duplicated costs and further constraints on business, which do not support innovation and new services.
Our draft response is now available for member comments and we will require feedback by 22nd January to enable us to meet PSA’s deadline of 26th January. Please download the document below, add your comments and return to regulatory@aimm.co