The Netherlands is the last member state of the European Union to implement the PSD2 Payment Services Directive. As of today it is possible for companies to apply to De Nederlandsche Bank for a licence for access to bank accounts. With this access, Dutch companies can then offer new services.
The Payment Services Directive 2 is a guideline that is especially suitable for fine-tech companies. They can use apps to jump on it by, for example, carrying out transactions for businesses and consumers. Of course, this is not something that can be done just like that: the account holder must always give permission for this. Companies must also have a licence, which they can apply for from today at DNB.
New services
The Dutch Central Bank states (PDF) that the arrival of PSD2 makes two new services possible. The first of these is a payment initiation service, where people can instruct a company to start a payment. The second is an account information service, so that companies, for example, can create an overview of all bank accounts that someone has been able to create.
DNB emphasises that this is a right and not an obligation. This means that no one has to disclose their account details or give other parties access to this information. The protection of the account holder is and remains in order, although the account holder’s own responsibility remains how he deals with it.
More competition
It is expected that this new directive will lead to more competition with traditional banks. Companies such as Google have already asked for a PSD2 license in a number of countries in the European Union and are likely to use it to analyse spending patterns and provide services based on them.
Banks think that PSD2 mainly leads to more overview and ease of payment. After all, it will soon be possible to combine payment information from different banks. This eliminates the need to install multiple bank apps. However, it remains of great importance not to simply provide access to payment accounts.
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.