The Payment and Electronic Money Institution Insolvency Regulations 2021

Objective 1: hard bar date

21.—(1) The administrator may, if they think it necessary in order to further expedite the return of relevant funds from an asset pool after setting a bar date under regulation 20, set a hard bar date for the submission of final relevant funds claims.

(2) The hard bar date must be set out in a notice.

(3) The administrator may not set a hard bar date without the approval of the court given on application by the administrator.

(4) The priority afforded to relevant funds claims under the following provisions does not apply to late claims—

(a) regulation 18(3), and

(b) any provision of the safeguarding provisions;

and no late claim may be founded on a beneficial interest in property.

(5) Immediately after the hard bar date, any relevant funds held in the asset pool which have not been claimed may also be distributed, in accordance with Objective 1, to users or holders who are entitled to them under their claims made before the hard bar date.

(6) The administrator must, as soon as reasonably practicable after the hard bar date, make a final distribution of relevant funds from the asset pool to users or holders who are entitled to them under their claims made before the hard bar date.

(7) Immediately after that final distribution, the ownership of any relevant funds which remain in the asset pool is vested in the institution and the administrator must, as soon as possible, transfer those funds to the institution’s own bank accounts.

(8) A notice under this regulation must—

(a) specify the hard bar date, and

(b) refer to paragraphs (4) to (6) and explain that (in accordance with paragraph (7)) following the distribution of relevant funds from the asset pool any remaining funds will be transferred to the institution’s own bank accounts.

(9) In this regulation—

“late claim” means a relevant funds claim, in response to the setting of a hard bar date, received after the hard bar date;

“safeguarding provisions” means—

(a)

regulation 23 of the PSR 2017, in the case of the following relevant funds—

(i)

those received by a payment institution, or

(ii)

those received by an electronic money institution for the execution of payment transactions which are not related to the issuance of electronic money, or

(b)

regulations 20 to 24 of the EMR 2011, in the case of relevant funds received by an electronic money institution apart from those in paragraph (a)(ii).