The impact of Payment Services Directive 2 on the PayTech sector development in Europe

Abstract

The implementation of Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) has radically changed the regulatory environment for providing payment services in the European Economic Area. The main objective of the study is to determine the impact of PSD2 on the number of newly established PayTech companies. The second objective is to explain the factors driving the distribution of PSD2-licensed entities across the European Union countries. The difference-in-difference method and the Poisson regression model served our empirical analysis. The results show that the adoption of PSD2 in November 2015 caused a rapid but temporary surge in PayTech start-ups in Europe. After national transpositions of the directive, the number of new entrants fell in 2018; however, it remained at a higher level than before the adoption of PSD2, which indicates its positive impact. The analysis has proved that market potential, the characteristics of payment systems, including the popularity of payment cards, and the public environment for FinTech start-ups provided by the authorities significantly affected the number of PSD2 licences issued. The introduction of the PSD2 has made the size of the domestic market play a smaller role, as PayTechs can operate on a pan-European level also while based in a smaller country. The importance of an open business environment has increased and offering regulatory sandboxes has proven to effectively support the development of the PayTech sector.