Internet and mobile payments changed the way people are paying for goods and services significantly. Stergios Leventis, Panagiotis Dimitropoulos and Stephen Owusu-Ansah, ‘Corporate Governance and Accounting Conservatism: Evidence from the Banking Industry’ (2013) 21 Corporate Governance: An International Review 264. Justin Paul,
Worldwide payment changes followed different patterns. This depended on the country, its development and fiscal politics. Tomi Dahlberg and Anssi Öörni, ‘Understanding Changes in Consumer Payment Habits - Do Mobile Payments and Electronic Invoices Attract Consumers?’ (40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS’07), Waikoloa, January 2007). See Catherine Barnard, Directive 2007/64/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 November 2007 on payment services in the internal market amending Directives 97/7/EC, 2002/65/EC, 2005/60/EC and 2006/48/EC and repealing Directive 97/5/EC (L 319/1).
The subsequent years brought a short relief for payment services in the European Single Market, Ruth Wandhöfer, EBC, ‘Statistics on payments – Data for 2009’ ( EBC, ‘Statistics on payments – Data for 2017’ ( Directive (EU) 2015/2366 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 on payment services in the internal market, amending Directives 2002/65/EC, 2009/110/EC and 2013/36/EU and Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010, and repealing Directive 2007/64/EC (L 337/35).
The article's objective is to explore the modern area of payment services in Europe and how it has been impacted by PSD2. For this purpose, the comparative research of the Directive implementation and its consequences was carried out. Section 1 explores reasoning and aims behind revising the Payment Services Directive. In Section 2, the overview of the implementation procedure can be found, and Section 3 indicates the most important changes introduced by the Directive. Section 4 analyses the legislations outcomes and reviews the payment services markets in the UK and Poland, comparing the effects with the assumptions from Section 2 and methods described in Section 3. Conclusions are included in the Summary.
The analysis has been conducted to scrutinize what PSD2 does change and whether applied changes were significant or irrelevant. The hypothesis of the article is that PSD2, as a complex directive, has impacted the market significantly and it should be visible in the structure of payment services market participants. The market should be joined by new entrants including FinTech companies, implying more intense competition. The conclusions will assess the accuracy of the hypothesis. The paper should also contribute to legal research on the use of new technologies in payment services.
The existing legal regulations were becoming out-of-date when compared to the rapidly growing market of financial services and the European Commission (further also as ‘EC’) had to react. Otherwise, it would result in a gap between acts covering the scope of the payments market and new, technology-driven ideas introduced to the market. Recital (7) notes: ‘ Commission, ‘Towards an integrated European market for card, internet and mobile payments (Green Paper)’, COM (2011) 941 final. Niels Vandezande, ‘Between Bitcoins and mobile payments: will the European Commission's new proposal provide more legal certainty?’ (2014) 22 International Journal of Law and Information Technology 295.
The research made by the EC (targeted at introducing Single European Payment Area – ‘SEPA’) revealed difficulties arising from insufficiently integrated card or mobile and internet payments. The primary issue exposed was the lack of law relevant to the new techniques in electronic payment services. The reasons were indicated in Recital (4) of PSD2, where authors stated that many innovative payment services products or services did not fall into the scope of the previous directive. European Payment Council, ‘PSD2 Explained’ (
PSD2 had to open payment services to a broader group of service providers, specifically to those excluded from the bank-privileged system (laws at that time tended to limit entrepreneurial activity of non-bank entities, favouring banks at the same time). Alexander Kern, Chiristian Stiefmueller, ‘Open Banking and PSD 2: The Promise of Transforming Banking by ‘Empowering Customers’’ in Jim Spohrer and Christine Leitner (eds)
The aim set by the European Commission was meant to be achieved on two levels. First of all, by introducing new legal entities that are well adjusted to the developing market of payment services. A service provider permitted to the activity available only for banks earlier. Secondly, by putting an obligation on banks to cooperate with recognized third parties on terms of the Directive.
PSD2, among many other solutions, introduced two legal entities dedicated to the companies working on processing payments or other software-related services in the area of payment services, like setting money aside. The EU Commission wanted to provide IT companies with all the regulatory tools necessary to enter the payment services market. To do so, under the category of third-party providers (hereinafter: It's the common acronym for those entities, which provide services as third parties under the scope of PSD2.
The idea of introducing TPP came with the intention of creating an empty space in the payment services market and enabling new companies to fill it. TPP were modelled as somewhat similar to intermediaries between banks and end-users. Yves Eonnet and Herve Manceron, E.g. MasterCard's cooperation with banks. See Nicole Jonker, ‘Regulating Interchange Fees for Card Payments’ in Jakub Górka (ed)
These companies under a PSD2 might provide two types of services, classified on the interference depth. The first service is called AIS ( E.g. Mint.com used as an example in Alan McIntyre and Andrew McFarlane, ‘The Brave New World of Open Banking’ (
The second service is more intrusive in bank independence and autonomy. PIS ( Michał Nowakowski, ‘Dostawca usługi inicjowania płatności – wymogi regulacyjne w świetle ustawy o usługach płatniczych i Rozporządzenia 2018/389’ (LEX 2019).
Both of these services can be provided only by the authorized entities (TPP – as above mentioned PISPs and AISPs). Once granted an authorization or entered into the register, a provider is able to connect with the banks. The possibility of accessing relevant information from the bank to provide a service is enabled through an API ( Sascha Preibisch,
For the purpose of creating a real opportunity for banks to cooperate with FinTech companies on the PSD2 legal ground, banks are obliged to share their API with the authorized TPP. An API should be programmed to ensure access to necessary data for payments. Consequently, a service provider is able to execute a transfer or provide a customer with the information he wanted to receive that was gathered on the bank account. In this way, TPPs are operating on the PSD2 legal ground.
The establishment of PSD2 was divided into two steps, each with its own period before it could be made fully exercised. The Directive entered into force on 12 January 2016, but its rules became applicable from 13 January 2018 for all correspondent states. PSD2 was addressed not only to EU Member States but also to three Member States of European Economic Area (Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein), enhancing its scope. See European Banking Federation, ‘Guidance for implementation of revised Payment Services Directive’ 8 (20 December 2019) < The doctrine of direct effect of directives according to settled case-law of the European Court of Justice. See Paul Craig and Grainne de Burca G., See Dorota Leszczykiewicz, ‘Effectiveness of EU Law Before National Courts: Direct Effect, Effective Judicial Protection, and State Liability’ in Anthony Arnull and Damian Chalmers (eds) PFT Wolters and BPF Jacobs, ‘The security of access to accounts under the PSD2’ (2019) 35 Computer Law & Security Review 6.
During the first step, the EC shaped new legal entities available to act under the scope of PSD2, under the category of payment services providers. It enabled all concerned to fit their services into the frames of newly enacted law under several different legal forms. A new legal framework not only provided rules adjusted to the market needs (which were also a factor in opening banking in Eastern Asia and Australia) Countries like Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong had started with developing similar solutions within private sector. It was named Jan Byrski, ‘Consumer Protection under Directive 2015/2366 on Payment Services in the Internal Market – Selected Issues’, (2017) 8 Cracow Review of Economics and Management 25.
PSD2 implementation into UK domestic law was done through the 2017 Payment Services Regulations The Payment Services Regulations 2017, SI 2017/752. Rory Copeland, ‘Regulatory revolution and new competition in the European Union payments industry’ (2018) 9 N. Ir. Legal Q. 215.
In contrast to the UK, PSD2 implementation to Polish law was postponed. The Directive draft legal act was published in the Government Legislation Centre ( Government Legislation Centre ( Ustawa z dnia 10 maja 2018 r. o zmianie ustawy o usługach płatniczych oraz niektórych innych ustaw, Dz.U. 2018 poz. 1075. First transitional period – from the 13 January 2018 up to the moment of adoption of parliamentary act implementing PSD2 changes to Polish domestic law. Second transitional period – since the moment of adoption of parliamentary act implementing PSD2 changes to polish domestic law up to the introduction of Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS). Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/389 of 27 November 2017 supplementing Directive (EU) 2015/2366 of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to regulatory technical standards for strong customer authentication and common and secure open standards of communication, (C/2017/7782). UKNF, ‘Komunikat Urzędu Komisji Nadzoru Finansowego dot. wybranych oczekiwań nadzorczych w odniesieniu do okresu przejściowego związanego z implementacją Dyrektywy PSD2’ (12 January 2018) <
While a second transitional period was fully dependent on the EU authorities’ introduction of the supplementary legislation, the first one occurred because of a delay in implementation at the governmental level. With the moment of adoption changes in the parliamentary act, the main process of transition was over, Marcin Olechowski, Wojciech Iwański, ‘Poland: open banking when will it start?’, ( UKNF (n 34).
When the PSD2 was announced, as an upcoming legal act addressed to all Member States of the EU and three more EEA countries, it was seen as a game-changer. Many journalists in the financial newspapers predicted a revolution in the payment services market. See The Economist, ‘Open plan’ (12 January 2019) 60.
The United Kingdom, with London as a financial centre, is perceived as a European leader in banking and financial services. Ronald C. Michie, Markos Zachariadis and Pinar Ozcan, ‘The Api Economy And Digital Transformation In Financial Services: The Case Of Open Banking’ (2017) 2016-001 SWIFT Institute Working Paper 3.
Open Banking targeted similar goals as PSD2, hence in the 2017 Budget, HM Treasury announced that Open Banking Standards would cover PSD2 solutions. Jelena Madir, Boumediene Ramdani, Ben Rothwell and Elias Boukrami, ‘Open Banking: The Emergence of New Digital Business Models’ (2020) 17 International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM) 1.
In the register, one is able to find 219 entities authorized to provide AIS or PIS, with 92 of them registered within the first 12 months. Many of the registered are banks and well-recognized financial firms. However, start-ups and other small companies managed to enter the register. FCA, ‘Financial Services Register’ <
A comparison of the number of above-mentioned companies with the overall number of start-ups and banks provides subsequent results. Britain's market contains over 1600 FinTech start-ups and 89 000 finance and insurance firms. Tomas Helm, Alex Low and Joshua Townson, ‘UK FinTech State of the Nation’, (
Poland, besides a delay in implementing PSD2 in domestic legal order, perceived the Directive as a great opportunity for further development. Kamil Leżoń, ‘Otwarta bankowość w świetle wymogów dyrektywy PSD2 – wyzwania i perspektywy rozwoju dla polskiego sektora FinTech’ (KNF, 2019) < Róża Milic-Czerniak, ‘Rola fintechów w rozwoju innowacji finansowych’ (2019) 57 Studia BAS 37. Krzysztof Markowski and others,
One of the first steps taken concerned creating a standardized API for all interested banks operating in Poland. The Union of Polish Banks ( KIR, ‘KIR dostarczy usługi wspieraj ące standard Polish API’ <
Polish API is being used in almost the entire Polish banking sector. The only two banks using their own systems are: Citi Handlowy and Volkswagen Financial Services. See ZBP, ‘Commercial banks’, < Kamil Leżoń (n 44) 64. Michał Nowakowski, ‘PolishAPI, czyli unikalny specjalny interfejs dostępowy Związku Banków Polskich’ (LEX 2019).
Polish authorities decided to only reveal AISPs in the registry of authorized entities. In the registry, only four entities are listed (as of 17 December 2020). KNF, ‘System ERUP KNF v 2.0’ <
However, the information received from the Spokesperson shows that in Poland for AIS or PIS applied many more entities exist (see Table 1). Email from KNF spokesperson Jacek Barszczewski to author (17 December 2020).
Number of AIS or PIS requests
11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | |
12 | 4 | X | X |
Source: own analysis based on the information received from KNF spokesperson.
The table shows that the acceptance rate of requests for banks is significantly higher and no bank's request for providing AIS or PIS services was rejected. For companies requesting for AISP, only a few requests were granted.
The repeal of the first Payment Service Directive and introduction of PSD2 tried to alter the current payment services market by providing a fresh regulatory framework corresponding to the market needs. The legislation has brought in tools allowing companies without a banking license to provide payment services if properly permitted by the domestic supervisory authority. It also made a change in terms of unifying payment services across the EEA through the rules transposed to the domestic legal systems. But was the market revolutionized?
The research reveals two things. In terms of numbers, the payment services market did not change considerably. On the one hand, only some companies operating within the payment services market used legal solutions to assess the new possibilities, the vast majority continued to run as they used to before PSD2 implementation. The EC indicated an increase in competition as one of the PSD2 objectives. While in Poland only a few non-bank companies were granted either AISP or PISP status, in the UK the number of such companies was much higher, with a higher share of non-bank companies, although given the number of firms in the sector it is also only small percentage. This objective has to be assessed only partially positively.
On the other hand, introduced changes have covered the entire payment services market with the complex regulation. Despite delayed implementation in a few countries like Poland, all correspondent states eventually implemented PSD2 into domestic law orders.
The Directive made a step forward towards a digitalized payment services market. The legislation in force is definitely more relevant to the existing market. By means like SCA, the general level of security in electronic payments has also increased. All the goals seem to be achieved except for the principal one, banks seem to be at the very place they were before the PSD2 and minor competitors have only slightly entered the market.
Number of AIS or PIS requests
11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | |
12 | 4 | X | X |
When Science Races: the Standard of Care and Medical Negligence in the Times of Covid-19 What impacts the value of revenues from taxation of income of corporations? Evidence from European Union Member States Medical Liability for Allocation of Scarce Healthcare Resources in the COVID-19 Pandemic: the Italian scenario Selected Economic and Social Aspects Resulting from Online Education at the Higher Level