JAPAN Trends and Developments Contributed by: Takaharu Totsuka, Keisuke Hatano and Tomoki Kashimura, Anderson Mori & Tomotsune
Anderson Mori & Tomotsune Otemachi Park Building 1-1-1 Otemachi Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 100-8136 Japan
Tel: +81 3 6775 1109 Fax: +81 3 6775 2109 Email: takaharu.totsuka@amt-law.com Web: www.amt-law.com/en/professionals/profile/TKT
Regulations on Payment Collection Service (Introduction of Regulations for Cross-Border Payment Collection Services) Overview of payment collection service Under Japanese law, an entity other than a bank that intends to provide a “Fund Transfer Service” is required to obtain a banking licence in accord - ance with Article 4 of the Banking Act or register as a “Fund Transfer Service Provider” in accord - ance with Article 37 of the Payment Services Act (the “PSA”). Although the term “Fund Transfer Service” is not defined by law, the Supreme Court has stated that the term means “accepting a request from a customer to transfer funds using the mechanism of transferring funds between people in remote locations without directly transporting funds or accepting and actually carrying out the request”. However, in practice, many convenience stores, courier service providers, mobile phone carriers, escrow service providers and certain payment service providers in Japan provide services that appear similar to the “Fund Transfer Service” without obtaining a licence as a “Fund Transfer Service Provider”. For example, a convenience
store may receive payment for an electricity bill from a customer and transfer the funds to the electricity company. These types of service are known as a “Payment Collection Service”. Although the term “Payment Collection Service” is not defined by law, the common features of the typical “Payment Collection Service” are as follows. • The funds are received by a “Payment Collec - tion Agent” as payment for goods or services provided by merchants as opposed to the pure transfer of funds. • The “Payment Collection Agent” is duly authorised to receive funds on behalf of mer - chants. • The payment obligation of customers is dis - charged when payments are made to “Pay - ment Collection Agents”. • The amount paid for each transaction is rela - tively small. • The “Payment Collection Agent” does not provide any deposit facility and simply hands over the received funds to the merchants.
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