The Second Payment Services Directive – Political Agreement Nears
By: Jacob Ghanty, Oliver Lewis
The original Payment Services Directive (2007/64/EC) (“PSD1”) was introduced to provide greater price transparency for users of payment services and to create a level, competitive playing field among providers of different types of payment service. Prior to implementation of PSD1, many types of payment service were not regulated, even if certain types of payment service provider, for example banks, were in some way regulated. However, since implementation of PSD1 in November 2009, the current regulatory regime has been unable to keep up with the pace of the fast moving payment services sector.