Basis for legal account changes

The statutory account switching assistance requires that the consumer and, if applicable, any other holder of the affected payment accounts have granted a corresponding authorization for account switching assistance, which includes instructions for the individual steps of the account switching process. The payment service providers involved are obligated to provide consumers wishing to switch with a form for granting the authorization.

In principle, every payment service provider offering payment accounts to consumers is obligated to provide account switching assistance.

Both payment service providers involved in the switch must provide support: the receiving payment service provider on the one hand – i.e., the payment service provider that will manage the account in the future and therefore receive the data – and the transferring payment service provider on the other hand – i.e., the payment service provider that currently manages the account and transfers the data to the new payment service provider. The receiving payment service provider initiates the account switch at the consumer's request.