It’s been around the corner for some time now and the momentum keeps on building as January 13th, 2018 approaches. There has hardly ever been a regulation that intrigued financial services providers in the EU as much as the long expected Revised Directive on Payment Services (PSD2).
Some regard it as the “Trojan horse for banking” while other see it as a great opportunity for new business models and open access to services and information that will improve user experience. In short, PSD2 enables bank customers, both retail and business, to use third-party providers (banks or other) to manage their finances. As a customer, you will no longer have to open accounts in 4 banks and use an excel sheet (or the good old pen and paper) to see your overall financial position, or go through a very complex process to pay for something from your current account if you want to do it right away.
From a regulatory point of view, PSD2 extends the scope of payments covered (“one leg payments” included), pushes for better customer protection, including 2-factor authentication and opens up the playground with the introduction of open API’s for all interested parties.
Great, but what does it mean for banks and other parties involved (e.g. vendors)? How are we going to make this happen and what is required in order to comply?
A glimpse of clarity was offered when the EBA published the Draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on Strong Customer Authentication and common and secure communication under Article 98 of Directive 2015/2366 (PSD2) (February 23rd 2017.).
We know you can hardly find the time to read all the regulatory documents – that’s why we have read them for you, and extracted the most important things.
Announcing Part 2 of this blog series: Off the shelf API’s, compliant smart authentication solutions and much more to save your time, we hope you will continue following this blog!