Bruxelles, June 21st, 2022
The Report was presented during the Open Finance: the Backbone of Digital Economy Experts Conference hosted by the Renew Europe Group in the European Parliament (represented by Ondřej Kovařík, MEP) and organized by the European Digital Finance Association (represented by Maria Staszkiewicz, President). The European Commission was represented by Eric Ducoulombier (Head of Unit, Retail Financial Services, DG FISMA, European Commission) and Jan Ceyssens (Head of Unit, Digital Finance, DG FISMA, European Commission). Our own Ana Maria Georgescu (Co-founder Smart Fintech) contributed to the Report and had an intervention in presenting it to the members of the European Commission.
Key take-aways from the meeting
◽ further improvements of the PSD2 experience: the Commission is drafting the Reviewing Report seven years subsequent to the PSD2 adoption, due in spring 2023. Therefor, a public consultation on PSD2 and Open Finance is in place;
◽ should ASPSPs be remunerated in order to expose best quality, top-notch APIs, hence receiving an incentive to go beyond compliance?
◽ the renewal of consent period by the PSU from 90 days to the 180 days as per EBA (European Banking Association) proposal will be considered further by the Commission after a thorough report, as EBA's proposal is seen now as a mere rapid-fix of the matter;
◽ there is a significant difference between theory and practice regarding the sandbox and production environments;
◽ instead of standardised APIs, a more confident approach could be a proposed list with the main APIs functionalities - transparent and harmonised;
◽ should there be taken into consideration the Service Level Agreements (SLA) regarding the PSD2 APIs exposed by the bank?
◽ customer journey of the PSU through PSD2 - the main beneficiary - should focus on frictionless, familiarity and trust;
◽ in the context of an ascending market demand trend for the VRPs (variable recurring payments) to cover the subscription models the Commission Report might take into consideration this segment as well;
◽ the bank staff lack information about what PSD2 and open banking are, hence are unable to respond to their customers' queries;
◽ 'triangular' passport does not have a very clear status in the PSD2 now - hence the European Commission prepared a response on the matter that is yet to be published.
The recording of the event is available here.
Great appreciation for their contribution to Maria Staszkiewicz (President, European Digital Finance Association) and Ondřej Kovařík (MEP, Renew Europe) for organising this event, and to all the contributing Fintech Associations: Romanian Fintech Association, Fintech Belgium, Italia Fintech, Bulgarian Fintech Association, SweFinTech, France FinTech, Holland FinTech, FinTech Poland, AEFI Asociación Española de FinTech e InsurTech, Fintech Norway and to all the contributors.
We will be back with further information and the Report with the Initial Position on the PSD2 Review after it will be published.
Bucharest, July 2022
In light of the PSD2 review process, members of the European Digital Finance Association outlined the main traction points on the way to accomplish a thriving fintech market.
While some of them can be addressed by a revised regulatory framework, others are better served by industry action, such as standards or codes of conduct.
We bring you, thus, the Report we were writing about earlier, containing the Initial Position on the PSD2 Review, which can be downloaded here.