Abstract

The issue of imposing anti-money laundering and combating terrorism financing obligations on those payment service providers who provide account information service or payment initiation service only is not entirely clear, especially in the case of the former. On one hand, the literal interpretation of the definitions contained in Polish and European laws and legal acts leads to a conclusion that both types of entities fall within the category of obligated institutions. On the other, the legitimacy and purposefulness of imposing AML/CFT obligations on payment service providers providing exclusively AIS or PIS services arouse serious doubts. It is also not quite clear how exactly these obligations should be fulfilled in practice. One possible approach to these issues is that the AML/CFT obligations are imposed only on those providers who offer exclusively PIS service, since they influnce the transfer of funds and must have in place an AML/CFT procedure which is subject to a supervisory review, whereas these obligations do not apply to providers who provide exclusively AIS service, since those entities do not have any influence on the direction of financial transfers.