Instruction No. 1/2024

Instruction No. 1/2024
BO No. 1/2024 Supplement • 2024/02/01
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Topics
Payment Systems :: Clearing
Mod. 99999940/T – 01/14
Index
Text of the Instruction
Text of the Instruction
Subject: Amending Instruction No. 8/2018
The 2024 State Budget Law (Law No. 82/2023, of 29 December) introduced amendments to the General Tax Law, approved as an annex to Decree-Law No. 398/98, of 17 December, particularly to its Article 40, relating to payment and other forms of extinction of tax liabilities. According to the introduced amendment, the payment, by legal entities, of tax liabilities and any other credits collected by the Tax and Customs Authority, must be exclusively made by electronic payment means, regardless of whether specific payment means are provided for in the special legislation relating to each tax. The concern of market participants regarding the existence of amount limits in payments to the State had already been identified within the framework of the National Strategy for Retail Payments, recognizing the need to flex these limits in order to allow legal entities and natural persons to make high-value payments to the State. Since a significant part of payments made to the State are processed through the card-based payment operations subsystem, it is important to align the maximum amount of operations processed through this subsystem with that in force for other electronic payment instruments. Thus, in the exercise of the competence attributed to it by Article 14 of its Organic Law, which confers powers to regulate, supervise and promote the proper functioning of payment systems, particularly within the scope of its participation in the European System of Central Banks (ESCB), and with the aim of regulating the functioning of the Interbank Clearing System - SICOI, the Bank of Portugal determines the following:

1. In Chapter VIII of Instruction No. 8/2018, of 22 March, point 34.1 shall have the following wording:
   «34.1. In subsystems with deferred clearing and settlement, operations with a value lower than:
   a) 100,000 euros for the commercial effect clearing subsystem;

Instruction No. 1/2024 BO No. 1/2024 Supplement • 2024/02/01 Topics Payment Systems :: Clearing
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Mod. 99999940/T – 01/14 b) 500,000 euros for the cheque, direct debit, credit transfer and card-based payment operations clearing subsystems.»
2. The provisions contained in this Instruction shall apply from 1 March 2024.