E-money service providers in Fiji will need to hand over all unclaimed monies to the Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF), states the proposed National Payment System Regulations 2022.
The regulations would govern the operations of companies that would offer a domestic money transfer service, cross-border money transfer service, merchant acquisition service and companies that issued e-money to allow the user to pay merchants or transfer to another individual.
“An e-money account for which there are no transactions for a continuous period of 6 months may be considered dormant,” stated the proposed regulation.
“A dormant account may be suspended by the e-money issuer, but the issuer must retain any account balance in the name of the customer for at least 12 months.
“Every e-money issuer must, within 60 days after the financial year, publish in a daily newspaper, a statement showing all dormant accounts.
“Every statement published under subregulation (3) must state that dormant account holders, or their legal personal representative, as the case may be, must submit a claim to the e-money issuer within three months from the date of publication of the statement.
“The unclaimed balance remaining in any dormant account for a period of three months after publication must be paid to the Reserve Bank and remains the property of the account owner.”
The RBF is now seeking submissions on the regulations that will be issued under Section 56 of the National Payment System Act 2021 which was passed by Parliament on February 12, 2021.
The closing date for submissions on the proposed regulation is February 18, 2022 and can be emailed to praneel@rbf.gov.fj.
