Member States shall ensure that an account servicing payment service provider, upon request by a payment service provider issuing card-based payment instruments, immediately confirms whether the amount necessary for the card-based payment transaction is available on the payer's online-accessible payment account, where the payer has given explicit consent to that account servicing provider to respond to requests from that specific payment service provider and that consent was given before the first request. A payment service provider may request confirmation where the payer has given explicit consent to that provider, the payer initiated the card transaction with a card issued by that provider, and the provider authenticates itself and communicates securely in accordance with point (d) of Article 98(1).

The confirmation shall be a simple 'yes' or 'no' only, not an account balance, and shall not be stored or used other than for executing the card transaction, nor permit blocking of funds. The payer may request the account servicing provider to communicate the identifying details of the payment service provider and the answer. This Article does not apply to card-based transactions on which electronic money as defined in point (2) of Article 2 of Directive 2009/110/EC is stored.