Some 10 years ago, EU lawmakers started to take issue with the stale world of payments, which had seen little innovation since the introduction of credit cards. The position of banks, payment processors and credit card companies was so entrenched they lacked any incentive to harness new innovation.
Hence, in 2015, the European Parliament passed the second payment services directive (PSD2) to increase competition in consumer finance by unbundling financial services. This meant that every bank had to share its interfaces with any other licensed and authorised player, whether that be another bank or a fintech company.
