Four banks to review rejected claims over unauthorized payment transactions

Alior Bank, mBank, BNP Paribas and Bank Millennium will take another look at customer complaints over unauthorized payment transactions after Poland’s competition and consumer protection authority challenged their handling of such cases.

The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, known by its Polish acronym UOKiK, said the banks did not always return funds within the statutory deadline. In some cases, they made a conditional refund while investigating a complaint, then withdrew the money again if they concluded that the customer had authorized the transaction or was responsible for it.

UOKiK also questioned cases in which banks refused refunds because the customer’s identity had been correctly authenticated. The authority said authentication only allows a bank to verify the user’s identity or the validity of a payment instrument. Authorization, by contrast, means that the consumer agreed to a specific payment transaction.

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Authorization and authentication are not the same.

The four banks accepted commitments that will end proceedings lasting nearly four years. They will change their practices and reassess claims that they previously rejected. UOKiK said the authority’s work is not over: 10 other proceedings involving similar allegations remain underway.

The authority reiterated that, as a general rule, a bank should promptly return the amount of a reported unauthorized transaction, no later than the end of the next business day after identifying the transaction or receiving the complaint. Exceptions apply, including cases in which the bank has reasonable, properly documented grounds to suspect fraud by the payer and informs the relevant authority.

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The president of UOKiK has consistently pointed for years to the need to distinguish authorization from authentication, as well as the obligation to establish the consumer’s informed consent to carry out a payment transaction.