equensWorldline, a European card and payment processor, has helped 25 European banks reach the first milestone of PSD2 compliance.
These financial institutions have become some of the first to get their testing facilities ready for the PSD2 deadline, being on track with the European Banking Authority (EBA) and corresponding National Competent Authorities timetables.
The 25 banks include Credit Europe, Commerzbank, Crelan, Bank J. Van Breda & C°, vdk Bank, Europabank, Crédit Municipal, CPH Banque and Comdirect Bank AG.
September 14 is the final deadline for PSD2 and requires financial institutions open their systems to support interactions with third-party providers. In March, there was an initial milestone for these FIs to must make their systems available for external testing.
A recent study from open banking platform Tink revealed around 41 per cent of European banks did not manage to meet the testing facility deadline.
equensWorldline, a subsidiary of payments company Worldline, has stated it is important banks keep to the specified timeline not only for innovation but also in case they need to request and exemption from the fallback mechanism. Exemption can be requested if the dedicated interface meets a specific criterion.
The RegTech company is helping banks with the exemption request but also to create these testing facilities or a sandbox environment, and a provides documentation on the APIs timeframe.
In addition to this, the company offers end-to-end dedicated interfaces, including consent management and third-party player verification which comply with PSD2 and let these third-parties access customer data when consent is given.
equensWorldline CEO Michael Steinbach stated that PSD2 compliance is only the beginning and is the foundation to let banks and FinTechs build innovative products.
He said, “Think about an application that can help retail customers with an up-to-date overview of their financial situation and provide an immediate and tailor-made loan.
“Or a service that helps corporate customers with the acceptance of account-based payments online and in store. Also in the area of cash management PSD2 can bring a vast improvement to corporates in managing their corporate funds efficiently and effectively. equensWorldline is geared to help banks not only with PSD2-compliancy, but also by taking the next steps in the development of new services and functionalities.
While PSD2 does offer a lot of new potential for consumers, they are relatively unaware of the regulation and what it offers. A recent study from MasterCard revealed 85 per cent of European consumers did not know what PSD2 was.
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