British regulator amends funds protection deadline
Operators given until 28 February to provide pop-up message displaying fund protection ratings to existing customers
Great Britain’s Gambling Commission has extended the deadline until 28 February for operators to provide all customers with an on-screen pop-up message detailing their funds protection rating.
The requirement was due to be enforced today (2 Feb), however, the regulator revealed a number of operators were unclear about whether they needed to provide the pop-up for both new and exsisting customers.
Operators were required to provide details of their customer funds protection and segregation policy in their T&Cs by 31 December, but some operators understood this to mean they would only need to prompt newly registered players from today.
As such, the regulator has agreed to extend the pop-up provision for existing players on the condition that operators have contacted players to notify them of the change in T&Cs, while pop-ups for new customers would still need to be in place from today.
“We can confirm that the requirement to be notified of (and acknowledge) ratings information at the point of deposit applies to both new and existing customers,” an update to the regulator’s FAQs read.
“However, where existing customers have already been notified about ratings information as a change to terms and conditions, the requirement to make the ratings information available on deposit has been extended until 28 February 2015.
“This allows operators additional time to make any necessary system changes where the original intention has been misinterpreted. For new customers this must be in place by 2 February 2015 as per the original requirement,” the statement added.
As part of the new licensing regime, holders of a Gambling Commission licence are required to segregate business funds from the funds deposited by customers in order to protect customer monies in the event of insolvency.
Operators must segregate customer funds in one of three ways, methods which the Gambling Commission has rated as basic, medium and high and operators must be clear about which method they employ.