Cap. 376 Art. 12Powers and duties of the Minister.

(1)The Minister, acting on the advice of the competent authority, may make regulations to give effect to the provisions of this Act, and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing may, by such regulations, in particular, do any of the following:

(a) amend any of the Schedules to this Act;

(b) exempt any person from any one or more provisions of this

Act, including an exemption from requiring a licence or a registration under this Act, subject to such variations, additions, adaptations and modifications as may be prescribed and subject to such conditions or other requirements, including other forms of authorisation and notification procedures, as may be prescribed;

(c) transpose, implement and give effect to the requirements of the Electronic Money Directive and the Payment Services Directive: Provided that, when any of the options referred to in Article 107(1) of the Payment Services Directive are made use of, the Minister shall inform the European Commission of the use of any such options as well as of any subsequent changes thereof;

(d) transpose, implement and give effect to the provisions, requirements, obligations and commitments relating to the regulation of payment institutions and electronic money institutions arising out of membership in, affiliation or relationship with international or regional organisations, or groupings of countries, or arising out of any treaty, convention or other international agreement whether bilateral, regional or multilateral to which Malta is a party;

(e) provide that any other law or any provision thereof, shall not apply to matters falling under the regulations and in particular, may exempt activities as may be designated from the application of any article or provision of the Civil Code;

(f) transpose, implement and, or give effect to the requirements of the PAD, and in so doing may also establish or maintain measures alternative to those referred to in Article 10(2) to (6) of the PAD: Provided that:

(i) it is clearly in the interest of the consumer;

(ii) there is no additional burden for the consumer; and

(iii) the switching as defined in Article 2(18) of the PAD is completed within, as a maximum, the same overall time frame as that indicated in Article 10(2) to (6) of the PAD;

(g) set up a specific mechanism to ensure that consumers who do not have a payment account as defined in Article 2(3) of the PAD in their territory, and who have been denied access to such a payment account for which a fee is charged by credit institutions, will have effective access to a payment account with basic features in terms of the PAD, free of charge;

(h) transpose, implement and, or give effect to the provisions and requirements of Directives, Regulations and any other legislative measures of the European Union requiring transposition and, or implementation as they may be amended from time to time, including any implementing measures that have been or may be issued thereunder and relating, but not limited to licence holders as may be specified therein; any such regulations strictly related to transposition or implementation as aforesaid, may contain provisions which are inconsistent with the provisions of this Act or any other law, and for this purpose may provide that any provision in this Act or in any other law shall not apply to matters falling under the regulations and in case of such inconsistency, the provisions in any such regulations shall prevail;

(i) regulate products and services offered by financial institutions;

(j) impose such fees and charges in respect of any request, application or other matter that may be submitted to the competent authority under this Act, including the fees and charges in respect of any permission, licence, authorisation, exemption or other benefit, as well as any fees and charges in respect of the competent authority’s regulatory, supervisory or investigative functions under this Act or any regulations made or Rules issued thereunder.

(2) Regulations made under this article may be made subject to such exemptions or conditions as may be specified therein, may make different provisions for different cases, circumstances or purposes and may give to the competent authority such powers of adaptation of the regulations as may be specified.

(3) Where regulations have been issued in terms of this article the competent authority may issue, amend or revoke any Financial Institutions Rule within the meaning of this Act to better carry out and implement the provisions of the regulations.