Regulatory Alerts2003-08-04
Opinion on the Compatibility Between Financial Agency Activities and Currency Exchange Activities
The UIC clarifies that the 2001 Provision's reference to financial agency activities for currency exchangers is strictly limited to money transfer services. This interpretation prevents the generic wording from being misconstrued as authorizing currency exchangers to perform the full range of financial activities reserved for financial agents. Consequently, the connected activity is defined exclusively as the payment service involving the collection and delivery of funds for transfer.
OPINION OF 4 AUGUST 2003
Compatibility Between Financial Agency Activities and Currency Exchange Activities
During the drafting of the UIC Provision of 21 December 2001, in order to take into account the existing situation—namely, the fact that currency exchangers operating within the national territory were already exercising, in a connected manner under the previous authorization regime, the activity of "money transfer"—it was deemed appropriate to indicate in Part I, Paragraph 2 of the Provision, among the activities connected to that of currency exchange, "as indicative, also the financial agency activity provided for by Article 3 of Legislative Decree 25 September 1999, n. 374".
Since this indication, due to its generality, lends itself to being interpreted as authorization for currency exchangers to exercise the entire range of financial activities reserved for agents, it is specified, with reference to the fifth paragraph of the aforementioned Paragraph 2, that only the financial agency activity limited to the provision of the payment service consisting of the transfer of funds through the collection and delivery of the funds to be transferred (money transfer) falls within the activities connected to that of currency exchange.