What Electronic Money Means under the Law
Under the Georgian law on payment systems and payment services, electronic money is the nominal value of monetary funds received by the e-money provider from a consumer for the purpose of carrying out payment operations, which is stored electronically, including on a magnetic medium, and which third parties, other than its issuer, accept as a means of payment. An e-money provider is a payment service provider that issues electronic money, and it is exactly the provider that becomes obliged to the consumer for the amount of the issued e-money.
Electronic Money within the System of Payment Services
The law treats as payment services, among others, the execution of a payment operation through a payment instrument,, the issuance or acquiring of payment instruments, including e-money instruments, money remittances, the issuance of electronic money and payment operations carried out by means of electronic money,. At the same time, the law does not extend to certain services: payments made in cash between payer and payee without an intermediary, cash-to-cash exchange not carried out through payment accounts,. A separate exception concerns an electronic communications operator: it may carry out payment operations for its subscriber in addition to the communications service, where the amount of an individual operation does not exceed 50 lari and the total of the operations performed by each subscriber per month does not exceed 300 lari. Beyond these thresholds the operator falls within the scope of payment services regulation.
The Right to Issue Electronic Money and Registration
It is impermissible for payment services to be carried out by a person that is not a payment service provider registered by the National Bank of Georgia, a commercial bank, a microbank or a microfinance organisation, or a person acting under another exception provided by the law. Registration, and its cancellation, are carried out by the National Bank under its own procedure, and upon registration the provider is granted the right to carry out a specific payment service or services. The National Bank publishes the list of providers with the permitted services, and significant providers are indicated separately. The capital of a provider must at no stage of its activity be less than the supervisory capital determined by the National Bank. In addition, a person planning to acquire a significant share — 10 percent or more of the declared or paid-up capital — must apply to the National Bank; the bank takes its decision within 1 month from the submission, and the absence of a reply within that period automatically means consent to the transaction.