An open banking ecosystem to survive the revised Payment Services Directive: Connecting international banks and FinTechs with the CBI Globe platform

Abstract

The payment services market is evolving at an accelerating rate, driven by continuous technological innovations and major legislative developments. One such piece of legislation is the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2), which intends to further define a common legal framework for the payment market in the European Economic Area, with the aim of increasing the level of integration and efficiency in the market, as well as increasing the level of consumer protection. In this context, the enhancement of collaborative infrastructures can be the keystone to anticipate and transform the challenges of PSD2 into opportunities. This paper describes the creation of an open banking platform, called CBI Globe — Global Open Banking Ecosystem, to facilitate the interconnection between banks and third parties through application programming interfaces, in line with the new directive. Using this platform, adhering parties will be able to simplify and expedite the administration of current accounts by offering both reporting and payment and collection services, thus exploiting the business opportunities enabled by PSD2.