Online intermediary platforms in a field of financial services

Bibliogr. s. 47

The purpose of the article is to investigate the types of online (digital) platforms dealing with financial services operating in Poland and to discuss their legal qualification. However, this is not about online services of banks or lending institutions that offer their own financial services online via websites. The subject of the analysis are online platforms, whose operators generally do not provide financial services themselves, and their activity is focused on the most broadly understood intermediation - at least facilitating the contact of "recipients" of such services with their "givers". This is in particular the case of comparison websites of payment, insurance, and consumer credit services. The first two have already been regulated in, respectively, directive 2014/92/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on the comparability of fees related to payment accounts, payment account switching and access to payment accounts with basic features, and directive (EU) 2016/97 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 January 2016 on insurance distribution (recast). As regards the consumer credit services, the most important question is whether the comparison websites as well as social lending platforms ("peer-to-peer lending platforms", "P2PL") can be declared as credit intermediary in the meaning of consumer credit directives (directive 2008/48/EC on credit agreements for consumers and directive 2014/17/EU on credit agreements for consumers relating to residential immovable property). Generally, in most cases the answer will be negative, taking into account the credit procedure (credit comparison websites) or the legal status of lenders and borrowers (P2PL platforms). Moreover, both financial services comparison websites and P2PL platforms have been analyzed in the light of academic draft of Directive on Online Intermediary Platforms. Platforms where contracts for the supply of financial services are concluded between a supplier and a customer, are so far excluded from the scope of the proposed directive. The conclusion of the article is that this exception can be justified by the specific nature of the financial services and the existence of the special European regulations dedicated to financial services.