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Research project 'Weighting risk of non-banks in payments system: the case of technological service providers (TSP)'

The Eurosystem pays increasing attention to the role played by non-banks in the provision of payment services and to related risks. Banca d'Italia decided to conduct a survey on the outsourcing of technological services associated with the provision of retail payment services. Such a survey is addressed to a sample of intermediaries (banks, non-banking institutions, electronic money institutions). The project is shared with some other European national central banks and is carried out in collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

This survey covers electronic retail payments only i.e. payments executed using instruments such as credit transfers, direct debits, payment cards and e-money. Payments executed by way of paper-based instruments (e.g., cheques) and purely manual procedures/activities are excluded from the survey.

In this respect, the Market and Payment Systems Oversight Department of Banca d'Italia, jointly with Banking Supervision, drafted a questionnaire divided into two parts: in the first part respondents are requested to evaluate the level of outsourcing and to provide the names of their major Technical Service Providers (TSPs); in the second part, respondents should provide a measure of the perceived risk, i.e. the risk intermediaries think they run due to the fact that one or more activities have been outsourced to TSPs.