Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of making the Contingent Reimbursement Model Code for Authorised Push Payment Fraud retrospective.

The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) established a non-governmental steering group of financial institutions and consumer representatives in March 2018 to develop a voluntary code of good practice to help protect consumers against Authorised Push Payment (APP) scams. At the end of February 2019, the steering group published the Contingent Reimbursement Model Code for Authorised Push Payments (the Code). The Code became effective on 28 May 2019 and customers of those payment service providers that are signatories are protected under the Code from this date. The Government recognises this may be disappointing for victims of APP scams that occurred before this date.

If a victim of an APP scam is not satisfied with how their payment service provider has handled their specific case, they may wish to contact the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The FOS was established by Government to provide a proportionate, prompt and informal resolution of disputes between a consumer and financial service firm.