PSD2

The PSD2 Directive (Directive 2015/2366/EU) is a new EU directive on payment services, which was incorporated into Greek law byLaw 4537/2018.PSD2 aims to boost competitiveness, innovation and efficiency through a common legal framework for businesses and consumers within the European Economic Area (EEA).

It concerns both retail and corporate payments, with the main objectives being:

• Improving competition
• Transparency and security of online payments
• Providing innovative solutions for the benefit of consumers

That Directive also lays down your rights when you make payments in Europe.

 
In the context of our digital transition and our commitment to provide high quality solutions to our customers, we develop specific Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which are addressed to TTPs (Third Party Providers), such as:

• • Account Information Services (AIS): Allow the Third Party Provider (TPP) to access information related to your accounts at various Banks such as but not limited to Payment Account information, list of available accounts, account balance, transaction analysis
• • Payment Initiation Services (PIS): Third Party Providers are given the possibility of electronic payment, credit transfer, direct debit, order renewal or cancellation, verification, payment status

For their implementation we have put a test portal in operation from 1/12/2020 (sandbox), and from 4/3/2021 on the same address the production environment (API portal) is also available. The API portals provide Third Party Service Providers (TPPs), such as Account Information Service Providers (AISPs) and Payment Initiation Service Providers (PISPs), with information on how to connect to the specific interfaces and the possibility to test their applications in the sandbox test environment.

Any interested TPP can register on the portal and develop payment services through it.

TPPs act as intermediaries between the customer and the institution and can be certified app developers, FinTech companies or even Banks or other Payment Institutions. To use the services, the customer can select any certified TPP they wish, but their explicit consent is required and the procedures for strong user authentication are in place.

On the following page you can see the operating statistics of the web banking and the portal.

To comply with the provisions of PSD2, the European Banking Authority (EBA) has developed Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS).