Request for Proposal to find an Economic Consultant for the definition of a possible business model for the SEPA Payment Account Access (SPAA) Scheme

In June 2021 the Euro Retail Payments Board (ERPB) invited the EPC to take up the role of scheme manager for the development of a SEPA API access scheme related to payment accounts, in line with the requirements defined in the June 2021 report of the ERPB Working Group on a SEPA SPI  Access scheme¹(SPAA).

The EPC  has been invited to develop a scheme in relation to access to payment accounts, with the legal and regulatory requirements of revised Payment Services Directive² (PSD2) constituting the ‘baseline’, but also going beyond such baseline to encompass value-added (‘premium’) services that may be provided in the context of ‘open banking’ as a natural evolution of PSD2, within the contractual framework of a scheme, and in line with the requirements of the abovementioned June 2021 ERPB report.

In November 2021 the EPC Board accepted the ERPB’s invitation to act as scheme manager for a SPAA scheme. To do so, the EPC Board established the SPAA Multi-Stakeholder Group³ (SPAA MSG). The work on SPAA is expected to result in new client experiences accompanied by new additional revenue streams, and allowing for a fair distribution of value and risk between actors, by enabling ‘premium’ payment services beyond PSD2, such as potentially ‘premium’ one-off payments, future dated payments, IBAN validation, etc.

In order to cater for such distribution of value and risk between actors, the 2021 June ERPB Report has defined possible business conditions for ‘premium’ assets and API services, allowing for the remuneration of at least two elements within a SPAA scheme, notably: i) the assets exposed through the API service by the Asset Holder4 and ii) the service itself, as provided by the Asset Holder.

According to the conclusions reached by the ERPB in June 2021, such remuneration could be achieved by way of providing a methodology for the determination of fallback fees applicable to ‘premium’ assets and API services, leaving the possibility to Scheme participants to agree bilaterally on a different (lower) amount.

Such fees, in line with the requirements outlined under the ERPB Report, are fees paid by the Asset Broker⁵ to the Asset Holder and are based on cost recovery and also taking into account the cost of capital.

The European Payments Council (EPC) launches a public Request for Proposal (RFP) to find an external Economic Consultant to which the EPC intends to outsource: i) the definition of the detailed cost methodology for such remuneration model, ii) the anonymised and aggregated collection of relevant data from the market on the basis of such methodology and iii) the compilation of a set of ‘default’ fees for ‘premium’ assets and API  exposure and consumption, in line with the requirements outlined under the RFP document (see in “related documents”).

Any potential service provider with a legitimate interest and meeting the RFP eligibility criteria can submit its application via email to silvia.dilillo@epc-cep.eu by 22 April 2022, close of business.

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^{1 June 2021 ERPB Report
2 Payment Services Directive (EU) 2015/2366 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 on payment services in the internal market, amending Directives 2002/65/EC, 2009/110/EC and 2013/36/EU and Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010, and repealing Directive 2007/64/EC
3 Terms of Reference of the SPAA MSG
4 The entity that holds the assets. An Asset Holder is not necessarily the same entity as the data owner. In the context of PSD2 an Asset Holder would be an ASPSP. The data holder in the context of GDPR is considered the data controller.
5 The entity that uses assets (e.g. data) from the Asset Holder, with permission of the Asset Owner, to deliver value to the end users. Value is being driven by either consumer or corporate demand. In the context of PSD2, a TPP would be an Asset Broker. The Asset Broker in the context of  GDPR will be considered a data controller or a data processor depending on the degree of control it exercises over the processing of the personal data which form part of the assets.}