Brussels, BELGIUM – Today, the European Commission presented a legislative package on open finance and payments, with a view to improving consumer choice and data access in financial services, as well as harmonising payment rules across Europe.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA Europe) sees the proposal as an important step towards an EU regulatory framework on access to financial data, with great potential to benefit consumers and the European economy as a whole.
In particular, CCIA Europe welcomes the Commission’s goals of improving the Second Payments Services Directive (PSD2) and facilitating data sharing and third-party access across a broad spectrum of financial services and products, while upholding data and consumer protection.
Open banking has driven innovation in financial services in recent years, resulting in user-friendly solutions and better service. Indeed, the advent of open finance presents major opportunities to promote competition, enhance innovation, and further streamline the EU single market.
The Commission’s package also consists of proposals for a new Directive on payment services and electronic money services (PSD3) and the new Payment Services Regulation (PSR), both of which aim to further harmonise and improve EU payment rules.
While strong customer authentication (SCA) has contributed to reducing certain types of fraud, the current prescriptive nature of SCA measures also creates significant hurdles for consumers and innovation. Hence, CCIA Europe encourages EU lawmakers to adopt an outcome-focused approach, putting stronger emphasis on the uptake of new technologies to enhance the customer experience while combating fraud in parallel.
The following can be attributed to CCIA Europe’s Policy Manager, Boniface de Champris:
“The Commission proposal gives a boost to consumer choice and improves access to financial data. These new rules have the potential to guarantee safe and seamless payments for almost 500 million Europeans.”
“The EU is really leading the way by opening access to numerous financial datasets, which will allow for the provision of the next generation of useful and innovative financial services.”