The European Commission is currently consulting on the revision of the Payment Service Directive 2 („PSD2“).
PSD2 regulates uniform EU-wide requirements for payment service providers and the provision of payment services. In Germany, the regulatory requirements of PSD2 are implemented by the Payment Services Supervision Act (“ZAG“).
In this regard, the European Banking Authority (“EBA“) submitted proposals to amend PSD2 to the European Commission in a 126-page opinion on June 23, 2022.
The proposals include:
- Adjustments to the catalogue of payment services, e.g., streamlining and clarification to enable clearer delineation between individual payment services as well as splitting and merging of individual payment services.
- Adjustments to the licensing procedure and supervision of payment service providers (e.g., with regard to capital requirements, the distinction between freedom to provide services and freedom of establishment, regulatory arbitrage and the resulting forum shopping, and delays in the licensing procedure).
- Clarification of liability rules and related key terms in connection with unauthorized transactions, which are said to have recently led to legal uncertainty and inconsistent application of the Directive.
- Specification and adaptation of strong customer authentication (“SCA”), e.g. with regard to liability and necessity of implementation.
- Requirement for account servicing payment service providers to make more information available to providers of account information and payment initiation services and exploration of the possibility of a single application programming interface (“API“) for these services as a standard in the EU.
- Enforcement of PSD requirements, such as measures to address the delayed implementation of SCA in card-based e-commerce.
The targeted consultations ended already at the beginning of July 2022, the public consultation end-ed on August 2, 2022. Against the background of the comprehensive opinion of the EBA, it is expected that the European Commission will deal with one or the other proposal even more intensively.
