European fintechs set up organisation to deal with payments directive

A group of European fintechs come together to deal with payments directive and set up a non-profit organisation.
The European Third-Party Provider Association (ETPPA) is an official non-profit that has been developed out of the less formal Future of European Fintech coalition.

„The new association strengthens interests of Third Party Suppliers (TPP) around the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2). The ETPPA formalizes, in this way, the coalition that already existed on the Future of the European Fintech (FoEF).”, according to the press release.

Originally created to join commitments around the request for changes concerning the first draft of the Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) of the European Banking Authority (EBA), published in February 2017, the FoEF facilitates knowledge on the provisions governing the authentication by clients, on the one hand, and secure communication between TPPs and banks, on the other.

The PSD2 or Second Payment Services Directive, which aims to promote competitiveness and transparency in financial services (providing greater consumer protection) has served to clarify the business of TPP, in particular, and the interests of Fintech, in general.

The group has been created to deal with the EU’s PSD2 regulatory technical standards. The EU directive, which took effect earlier this year, deals with the regulation of payment services and payment service providers within the trading bloc.

The ETPPA aims, with the regulation in mind, to push the interests of third party providers such as fintechs. When regulations were initially introduced, it was felt by some that they favoured big banks. Therefore the organisation will work to make sure the voices of challenger banks and the like are heard.

Several members of the Future of the European Fintech (FoEF), attended on behalf of the interests of the TPP to the API Evaluation Group of the European Commission. FoEF was also invited to take the vacant post of Payment Initiation Services Provider (PISP) at the Euro Retail Payments Board (ERPB), a high-level body chaired by the European Central.

The European Association of Third Party Providers (ETPPA), has been configured efficiently and was born wanting to facilitate membership, very affordable, dividing into voting and non-voting members, to allow different levels of participation.

Members include Bankin’, Eurobits, Sofort, PPRO and Trustly, with the board made up of founding members of each of these companies.