Safeguarding of Professional Liability for Payment Initiation Services; Authorisation to Issue Statutory Instruments

(1) An institution that provides payment initiation services must conclude, and maintain in force for the duration of its licence, professional indemnity insurance or another comparable guarantee. The professional indemnity insurance or other comparable guarantee must cover the territories in which the payment initiation service provider offers its services, and must cover the liability arising for the payment initiation service provider under the provisions of the Civil Code. Section 17(3) applies correspondingly.
(2) The professional indemnity insurance must be taken out with an insurance undertaking authorised to carry on business in Germany. The agreement must oblige the insurance undertaking to notify BaFin without delay of the termination or cancellation of the professional indemnity insurance, where applicable only after expiry of the period under section 38(3), third sentence of the Insurance Contract Act, and of any amendment to the contract that impairs the required safeguarding of professional liability as against third parties.
(3) In the cases under section 115(1), first sentence, nos. 2 and 3 of the Insurance Contract Act, BaFin, on application, gives third parties seeking to assert liability claims information on the name and address of the insurance undertaking and the contract number, insofar as the undertaking providing the payment initiation service does not have an overriding legitimate interest in the information not being given. This also applies where the licence as a payment initiation service provider has lapsed or been revoked.
(4) BaFin is the competent body within the meaning of section 117(2) of the Insurance Contract Act.
(5) The Federal Ministry of Finance is authorised to issue, by statutory instrument not requiring the consent of the Bundesrat, more detailed provisions on the scope and content of the required safeguarding of professional liability. The Federal Ministry of Finance may transfer the authorisation, by statutory instrument, to BaFin. The leading associations of the institutions and of the insurance undertakings must be heard before the statutory instrument is issued.