ABSTRACT
The Payment Services Directive II forms part of a larger series of projects, across the globe, to introduce ‘open banking’ to introduce competition in payment services and to give customers rights over the use of their financial data. Legislation in this area varies depending on the objectives. Some jurisdictions seek to use ‘open banking’ as part of a process of social engineering, while others are more interested in disrupting the grip of global credit card companies. All these initiatives seek to harness technology and innovation to empower customers to trust and to use a wider range of payment services providers and hence develop competition. These changes in the law are also changing the market place. However, the challenge will only be met if consumers can see real benefit for them in these changes. While there is a real risk that the perception and actuality of fraud may undermine customer trust the great risk is more likely to be public inertia. The consequences may result in further variations of PSD II with new Directives with more Roman numerals.
