Dear Customer

Following on from a full consultation and review of subscription services in the market, please find below a notice from the Phone-Paid Services Authority (PSA) regarding the introduction of new Special Conditions to be implemented by 1st November 2019.

"Following a full examination of services which make recurring charges to a consumer’s phone bill in exchange for digital content - such as games, music streaming or videos - the Phone-paid services Authority has introduced new Special conditions for subscription services.

Following a full consultation on subscription services, the new requirements will raise standards in the market to meet consumer expectations. There are three major changes which all providers of services will have to comply with or they will be in breach of the Code of Practice and potentially subject to sanctions which may include significant financial penalties:

1. A two-stage sign-up process will be required where the first stage requires an opt-in using either a PIN, account and password or Mobile Originating SMS. This must be followed by a second opt-in confirmation stage.

2. Greater clarity in ensuring that consumers are aware they are in a payment environment and signing up to a phone-paid subscription.

3. A receipt must be issued after every charge.

Many services meet the new requirements. But the new rules bring clarity to the industry and are designed to remove confusion, accidental sign up, and to prevent deliberate deception. This consistency is in line with good practice in other online payment processes."

You can find the full notice on the below link:

https://psauthority.org.uk/news/news/2019/august/new-special-conditions-for-subscription-services

You can find the full consultation on the below link:

https://psauthority.org.uk/research-and-consultations/consultations/2019/february/consultation-on-the-regulatory-framework-for-phone-paid-subscriptions

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Kind regards

Fonix Compliance Team
Posted on Aug 7, 11:55 BST

Dear Customer

Please be advised we will be undertaking planned maintenance on our Campaign Manager platform on the below date and time.

The maintenance will include the release of the below features:

1) Campaign Breakdown Table: Only display prize value if the prize value is set to yes in the campaign round
2) Technical performance improvements for the dashboard reporting
3) Subscriber data: Date of Birth field to be searchable without the year
4) Lists: Automatic exclusions from Stop Lists based on the time stamp for users that have opted in via Subscriber Data
5) Marketing Report: Change consumer spend to outpayment
6) Marketing Report Breakdown Table: Change consumer spend to outpayment

There is no anticipated impact to service during the maintenance window.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Kind regards

Fonix Operations Team
Posted on Oct 17, 17:11 BST

Dear Customer

Please be advised we will be undertaking planned maintenance on our fpay platform on the below date and time.

The maintenance will include the release of the below compliance features as recently mandated by the PSA and Vodafone:

1) Implementation of a receipt message after every successfully billed transaction
2) Amendment to expire the pin after a 15 minute window
3) Implementation of Empello Fraudstop for single purchase services
4) Implementation of purge rules for permanently barred subscribers on the Vodafone network

There is no anticipated impact to service during the maintenance window.

Kind regards

Fonix Operations Team
Posted on Oct 14, 13:03 BST

Dear Customer

Please be advised we will be undertaking planned maintenance on the below date and time.

The *.fonix.io certificate used for all Fonix gateway APIs is due to expire on the 26th of November.

We are planning to make a certificate change on the 23rd of October which will require an update to your trust store.

Please note the current certificate was issued by GeoTrust, the new certificate to be implemented on the 23rd of October will be issued from Amazon. Please make sure that the new root CA is in your trust store to avoid any interruption to service.

The new certificate is already in use on https://fpay-reporting.fonix.io which can be used to get the full certificate chain.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need further information.

Kind regards

Fonix Operations Team
Posted on Oct 1, 12:42 BST

Dear Customer

Please be advised we have received the following communication from Vodafone regarding an update to the Vodafone Code of Practice, to be implemented by 1st November 2019.

"This year has been very busy and therefore now is the right time to update the Vodafone CoP.

So far we have seen:  

1. The introduction of the Security Framework for Charge to Bill (CTB) partners and the PSA draft Guidance in support of that,

2. The introduction of FraudStop by Vodafone,

3. The stabilisation of the industry effort to remove Phishing by SMS,

4. The first audits of Payment Services Regulation 2017,

5. The launch of the new PSA Registration program,

6. The substantial redrafting of the Phone-paid Services Authority’s suite of Special Conditions (live from 1st November 2019). 

Vodafone is required to give partners formal notice of changes that affect the contract between us and as the Vodafone CoP is contractually binding on you, please accept this notice that from the 1st November 2019 this new CoP takes full effect.

The change from one CoP to another should have no meaningful impact on you as each partner is already fully engaged in Phishing by SMS prevention, delivering the Security Framework and is already obliged to deliver the PSA CoP. However, this Vodafone CoP has been substantially revised and rather than detail every change, you are advised to read and digest all the information contained therein and disseminate to your wider business. 

There are a few sections that require highlighting:     

In General Principles, Sections 1.10, 1.11 and 1.12 formalise existing obligations on you.        

In Section 4. Use of the Vodafone Charge to Bill platform - there are significant clarifications on the cessation of subscriptions and purging of MSISDN lists (4.6 all sections).  

In 4.10 Vodafone is formalising the wording required on payment page buttons for partners using the PFI Principles Flows. This is to refute claims that merchants are avoiding the use of overt commitment words to alert the customer to a cash transaction applied to their mobile phone bill.

Section 7. General SMS Rules. Please pay special attention to section 7.10 general purge rules."

Please find below a link to the new code of practice.

https://fonix.com/fonix/vf_uk_prs_cop_16_9_19.pdf

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Kind regards

Fonix Compliance Team
Posted on Oct 7, 11:31 BST

Dear Customer

Please be advised we have received the below notification from the Phone-paid Services Authority regarding the new service registration requirement.

All customers must update the PSA website with the required details for all registered services by 2nd December 2019. Please note the information required is comprehensive, so we would recommend completing the details as soon as possible.

"The service registration update is here

You have until 02 December 2019 to update your service details and comply with this new Code requirement.

Why are we doing this and what are the changes about?

Registration was introduced seven years ago and has not been updated since. In that time, the phone-paid service market has evolved considerably. These changes will bring more efficiency in:

• consumers finding all the information they need on the service they used (what the service is about, how much it costs, how they’re being charged and how to contact the provider) and increasing their confidence in phone-paid services

• the PSA running effective market analysis, service monitoring and due diligence instead of directing consumers due to inaccurate/incomplete Service checker results.

How do I update my service registration?

Next when you log into your PSA registration you’ll be able to see a list of all your current services. You will need to go into each service and fill in all the missing information. Once you do this, the status of the service will change to 'Complete' and you’re done.

We will then check all the information you entered to make sure it’s accurate. If we find any missing information or discrepancies, we will get in touch with you."

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Kind regards

Fonix Compliance Team
Posted on Sep 3, 11:25 BST