The Payment Accounts Regulations 2015

Eligibility criteria

23.—(1) In order to be eligible for a payment account with basic features offered by a designated credit institution (“B”), a consumer must be legally resident in the European Union, and must either—

(a) not hold a payment account with any United Kingdom credit institution that has at least the features set out in regulation 19(1); or

(b) be ineligible for all payment accounts offered by B that are not payment accounts with basic features.

(2) For the purposes of paragraph (1)—

(a) consumers legally resident within the European Union include—

(i) consumers with no fixed address;

(ii) asylum seekers within the meaning of section 94 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999(1) (interpretation); and

(iii) consumers who have not been granted a residence permit but whose expulsion is impossible for legal or practical reasons;

(b) a consumer is not to be considered to hold a payment account where the consumer makes a declaration that the credit institution with which the payment account is held has given notice that the payment account is to be closed.

(3) A designated credit institution must verify whether a consumer falls within paragraph (1)(a), unless it chooses to rely on a declaration made by the consumer to that effect.

(1)

1999 c.33; section 94 was amended by S.I. 2008/2833 and sections 44, 60(2) and 161 of, and Schedule 9 to, the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (c.41) (of the amendments made to section 94 by the 2002 Act, only the amendment given effect by section 60(2) has entered in to force to date).