Recital 1

(1)Amendments have been made to Directive 98/26/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council ¹ and Directive (EU) 2015/2366 of the European Parliament and of the Council ² concerning access to central bank operated payment systems for payment institutions and electronic money institutions, collectively referred to as non-bank payment service providers (NB-PSPs). As a consequence, amendments are required to Guideline (EU) 2022/912 of the European Central Bank (ECB/2022/8) ³ (hereinafter the ‘TARGET Guideline’), inter alia, to include NB-PSPs among the entities eligible to participate in TARGET. In view of delays in some euro-area Member States in transposing the amendments to Directives 98/26/EC and (EU) 2015/2366 into national legislation, the Governing Council of the ECB has decided to postpone the amendments to the TARGET Guideline. The Governing Council took this decision in order to avoid the legal uncertainty that would have ensued if NB-PSPs had been eligible to access some, but not all, Eurosystem central bank operated payment systems, including TARGET components.