During the 7th Annual FinTech and Regulation Conference on Tuesday 7 February, the European Commissioner for Financial Services, Mairead McGuinness, gave more details on the upcoming review of the PSD2 Payment Services Directive and the ‘Open Finance’ framework (see EUROPE 12840/6).
The revision of the Payment Services Directive focuses on four main issues: - preventing fraud; - improving implementation and enforcement; - ensuring a level playing field between banks and other providers in access to payment services; - Open Banking.
“The second Payment Services Directive set out the foundations for Open Banking”, she explained. It allows the sharing of payment account data with another provider, with the customer’s consent.
This review will lay the foundations for the work on “Open Finance”, which aims to give the customer control over their data.
“We want to enable more services based on data, while making sure customers know what data they are sharing and who it is being shared with”, she said. In concrete terms, “that could mean a small business getting a quick answer on a loan application, based on sharing financial data with a bank”, she gave as an example.
The Commission therefore wishes to apply the same principle as the Digital Markets Act, addressing imbalances caused by the market power of powerful companies.
“Now looking to the future, we want to keep on harnessing the benefits of digitalisation and innovation while mitigating the risks. I hope that companies will seize the new opportunities our legislation opens up”, she stressed.
This open funding initiative is part of the Commission’s cross-cutting data strategy. It should be presented on Wednesday 28 June. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)