The Open Banking Interviews: Reinout Temmerman, Payments Advisor, National Bank of Belgium

No PSD2 without a regulator. That is why we are very glad that we were able to convince Reinout Temmerman of the National Bank of Belgium to join us for the Open Banking Interviews. This interview has a slightly different dynamic compared to the other, but it is definitely as interesting!

Part IX of The Open Banking Interviews (see part VIII, with Fanny Solano, Head of Digital, Retail and Markets Regulation, CaixaBank).

It’s our first interview with a regulator. Could you share your view on the changing market? Are banks, fintechs and consumers ready for September 14th?

There are challenges ahead, also after the 14th of September. We see challenges at a pan-European level from a regulatory point of view from the entering into force of the strong customer authentication rules and this specifically for the cards industry as concerns e-commerce. I refer also to the EBA Opinion released in June in this regard. We have seen recently in the UK, France, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands, PSD2 authorities releasing public statements with regard to supervisory flexibility and enforcement of SCA (Strong Customer Authentication) for certain use cases. At the Belgian level, we are certainly closely monitoring that situation.

On the other hand, for PSD2 and Open Banking within the limits of PSD2, I think the 14th of September is just the beginning. We’ve seen the overwhelming majority of Belgian banks move to API-based PSD2 ‘Open Banking’ solutions.

As we know, however, APIs are never truly finished. There will always be new versions of these APIs, and I think the real test for APIs is going to be in their actual use by third parties and by consumers using TPP services. Just as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, based on the eating of the pudding we may have to tweak the recipe there as a regulator.