Published: 31.10.2023.
The Board of the Bank of Latvia, continuing to strengthen the stability of the Latvian financial system, has adopted “Critical Financial Services Management Rules”, which will enter into force on November 1, 2023, with a longer transition period for certain measures.
After the integration of the Financial and Capital Market Commission, the role of the Bank of Latvia in coordinating the provision of access to critical financial services significantly increased, combining the competence that each institution had in this matter until the end of 2022.
The regulation of the management of critical financial services has been updated to promote the availability of financial services to citizens in the event of a national threat. In addition, the need to improve the requirements and procedures for the provision of critical financial services regulated at the level of the regulations of the Bank of Latvia, among other things, taking into account the current developments:
geopolitical changes along with Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, as well as conclusions drawn from the analysis of the situation in Ukraine; current scenarios in the event of a national threat, which were coordinated with service providers and competent national authorities; accumulated experience in the field of providing critical financial services, i.e. see preparing and testing business continuity solutions.
The rules stipulate:
criteria for determining those credit institutions registered in Latvia or another member state of the European Union, which develop a business continuity plan to ensure the availability of critical financial services and ensure the availability of critical financial services in the event of a national threat; the volume of critical financial services in the event of a state threat; requirements for the development of business continuity plans of credit institutions; procedures for coordinating the provision of critical financial services in the event of a state threat.
Critical financial services include online banking and mobile app payments, payment card payments and cash withdrawals from ATMs. Currently, Swedbank AS, SEB banka AS, Citadele banka AS and the Latvian branch of Luminor Bank AS meet the criteria for determining critical financial service providers in Latvia.
Compared to the previous regulation, several additional solutions for ensuring the availability of critical financial services are defined:
the requirement for the service provider to ensure credit transfers not only with other service providers, but also with other participants of the electronic clearing system of the Bank of Latvia registered in Latvia (all other credit institutions and the State Treasury); additional requirements for critical ATMs to ensure their availability in case of unavailability of power supply and data transmission services (a transitional period until January 1, 2025 is set for the implementation of this requirement); a new requirement regarding the acceptance of payment cards, which provides for the use of an offline solution for the purchase of essential goods (for example, food, fuel and medicines) for a total amount not exceeding 200 euros per customer (a transition period has been set for the implementation of this requirement until 1 January 2025. for January).
“Critical Financial Services Management Rules” issued pursuant to a delegation contained in the National Security Act.
2023-10-31 08:33:49
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