Worldline supports the European Commission’s initiatives to shape the future of payments in Europe

As Europe’s leading payment Company, Wordline welcomes these developments. We have closely followed and contributed to the legislative processes through various consultations and exchanges. Our goal is to ensure that the needs of the industry are appropriately considered in the European public debate.

The package of measures comprises the following initiatives:

• Payments Services Directive 3 (PSD3) and Payments Services Regulation (PSR). The aim of this package is to harmonize the payments framework, refine open banking rules, create a level playing field and address social engineering frauds. It sets out minimum functionality requirements for OpenBanking APIs which will help create a more consistent set of services. It addresses certain gaps in PSD2; modernizes and streamlines #SCA (Strong Customer Authentication) rules for a better user experience. It also introduces the liability of technical service providers providing strong customer authentication services.

It paves the way for an improved competitive environment, also in the context of the implementation of the new instant credit transfer regulation. It merges the e-money directive into PSD, while maintaining the distinction between the services in question and the requirements for firms. 

• Financial Data Access. FIDA (open finance) regulation aims to speed up data-driven innovations in the EU. It sets the obligation to firms to share a broad range of financial sector data based on industry schemes while foreseeing compensation for data. Concretely, it regulates the sharing of information regarding credit, loans, savings, investments, crypto-assets, real estate, pension rights, insurance (with certain exemptions), and potential “input” data as a part of an application by a firm for a creditworthiness assessment. It defines which companies accessing data should be regulated and supervised and it puts customers in control of their own data. Payments Institutions, together with other types of regulated financial entities will fall within its scope.

It remains to be defined what is the exact scope of data which should be shared with authorized third parties through standard interfaces. 

An innovative and future-oriented regulatory environment is a strong competitive advantage for Europe. The European Commission has shown ambition with regard to innovation and efforts to position Europe as a global leader in the realm of digital payments. To stimulate innovation in payments and ensure competition, Worldline believes co-legislators should consider the following principles to guide their work on these legislative proposals:

• Ensure a regulatory-level playing field that encompasses the payments sector’s diversity, allowing the private sector to develop innovations through competition without crowding out existing private sector solutions
• Take the appropriate measures to address market failures
• Further harmonize EU payments legislation
• Encourage EU-wide active promotion of digital payment methods to the benefit of the whole society