European Third-Party Provider Association established

The non-profit organisation has been established by the founding members PPRO, Bankin’, Eurobits, Klarna/Sofort, Trustly

PPRO, with its co-founders, is pleased to announce the set-up of the European Third-Party Provider Association (ETPPA), a new entity that strengthens Third Party Providers’ (TPP) interests around the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2). The ETPPA formalises the existing Future of European Fintech (FoEF) coalition into an official non-profit TPP trade association.

The FoEF was originally created to unite forces in requesting changes to the European Banking Authority’s (EBA) first draft of the PSD2 Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) in February 2017, on the provisions governing strong customer authentication and secure communication between TPPs and banks, which was very much against the spirit of PSD2 and against the interests of Fintechs in general, jeopardising the business of TPPs in particular.

Several FoEF members represented the TPP interest at the European Commission’s API Evaluation Group and FoEF was also recently invited to take the vacant Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP) seat at the ERPB (Euro Retail Payments Board – a high-level body chaired by the European Central Bank, gathering the supply and demand sides of European retail payments) as a guest until a formal representation has been established.

Ralf Ohlhausen, Business Development Director at PPRO commented: “We are delighted to strengthen our position with the launch of the ETPPA, and we encourage all TPPs and Fintechs with a significant interest in the PSD2 arena to join us, to bolster our efforts in supporting TPP interests vis-à-vis banks, as well as national and European authorities.

“A crucial aspect of PSD2 is the abolition of the monopoly that banks have over accessing their customers’ account data. This will allow consumers to unlock their data and obtain a wide range of value-added services. It will strengthen the position of financial start-ups, as well as promote the development and use of innovative online and mobile payments and account information services.”

The ETPPA organisation has been setup lean and mean to make membership very affordable and divided into voting and non-voting members to allow different levels of engagement.

More information about the ETTPA can be found at www.etppa.org.