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The SEPA Payment Account Access scheme is driving ‘open banking’ in the EU beyond the revised Payments Services Directive
Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems,
18
(4),
406-417
(2024)
Abstract
This paper presents the SEPA Payment Account Access (SPAA) scheme, exploring its origins, associated benefits and challenges as well as the related regulatory context. The SPAA scheme covers the set of rules, practices and standards that allow for premium, value-added open banking services beyond the regulatory requirements. The revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) describes the legal framework for open banking in Europe. It obliges account servicing payment service providers to provide — free of charge — dedicated interfaces to allow regulated third parties to access an account holder’s payment account with consent of the account holder. With this access, third parties are permitted to provide ‘basic’ open banking services regulated under PSD2. Not long after PSD2 was implemented, the Euro Retail Payments Board started exploring the possibilities for a potential SEPA application programming interface (API) access scheme for premium, valueadded services beyond PSD2. This resulted in several recommendations and a formal invitation to the European Payments Council (EPC), which subsequently developed the SPAA scheme. The SPAA scheme enables ‘premium’ payment services beyond the regulatory requirements of PSD2 and supports a wide variety of payments use cases, including online and in-store. It aims to drive open banking in the European Union (EU) in a way that unlocks and creates value while allowing for a fair distribution of value and risk between participants. SPAA is a pan-European scheme that underpins the EU’s objective of payments sovereignty, is supported by the relevant EU institutions and developed collaboratively in a multi-stakeholder setup by the retail payments industry. In addition to the SPAA scheme rulebook, a default asset remuneration model based on a cost calculation methodology has been developed to support the scheme. The SPAA scheme has the potential to further drive payments innovation and could be regarded as a stepping-stone towards open finance beyond payments as well as ‘open data’ beyond finance.
Keywords: open banking; payments; PSD2; pan-European scheme; asset holder; asset broker; SEPA Payment Account Access scheme; SPAA
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Christophe Godefroi is Senior Manager, Standards and New Developments at the European Payments Council (EPC) and is inter alia responsible for the development and maintenance of the implementation guidelines for the EPC payment schemes and the SEPA Request-to-Pay scheme. He also drafted the SEPA Payment Account Access (SPAA) scheme rulebook and provides support to the SPAA Multi-Stakeholder Group and associated work blocks. Prior to his tenure at the EPC, he worked for the Bank of New York Mellon and as a management consultant where he provided performance management and coaching services to several blue-chip companies. Christophe holds a master’s degree in applied economic sciences from Ghent University.
Niels Pranger is a policy adviser at the Dutch Payments Association. He is a specialist in such areas as instant payments, open banking and the revised Payment Services Directive. Niels graduated cum laude from the Vrije Universiteit Duisenberg Honours Programme with a master’s degree in financial markets and regulation, having previously earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance from the University of Amsterdam. Before joining the Dutch Payments Association, Niels worked at Euroclear.
