PSD2 experts in our podcast: lots of confused consumers for the next 18 months
PSD2 can only fulfill its purpose if consumers want to use the services it enables. But before the services will be ready for users, there’s some unfinished business in implementing the PSD2.
Last week, Qvik hosted a full house Business&Beers event with a panel discussion on PSD2 and its opportunities for mobile services. We had four top-notch banking experts on our panel: Liisa Kanniainen, VP Senior Strategic Advisor at Nordea ; Chris Moore, Product Owner at OP Lab; Gwen Sandberg, Partnership Director at Tink and Jerker Holma, Business Development at Aktia Finance Ltd . The panel was be moderated by Matias Pietilä, Head of Design at Qvik.
In the discussion, our panelists shared their insights on the state of PDS2 and what they expect to see during the 18-month transition period and after. Here are some of the sentiments discussed in the panel. You can get the full picture by listening to the podcast.
The idea is good, but the execution is a mess.
“If PSD2 really does what it is intended to do, it will put the power back in the customer’s hands and enable them to make the choices that are best for them”, says Gwen Sandberg from Tink.
According to her, there is much confusion regarding the implementation of the law. “In the midst of this ambiguity, there are a couple of things that we do know: the threshold is being lowered, and customers are getting better control of the data. This is going to open up the market and you will see the entrance of players such as Facebook and Google.”
Liisa Kanniainen from Nordea sees that, after PSD2, banks can work in a more agile way and provide a more comprehensive selection of services for their customers, but she isn’t that happy with the lawmakers.
“I love the fact that with PSD2, the cooperation between banks and fintech will improve and this brings much value to the whole ecosystem”, Kanniainen says. “But I think the law itself is not very well written.”
At the moment, the security concerns are real.
“There’s obviously an issue with security that needs to be taken seriously. I think we need to try and balance usability and security in a way that lets customers make decisions that suit them”, says Jerker Holma from Aktia.
Banks have had a strict policy that users should never give their bank credentials to anyone but the bank, and now all of a sudden, it’s OK to trust third parties with them. Understandably, users feel doubtful about this, and for the moment they should.
“At the moment, there is no register of safe players: there’s no way to check whether a third-party provider has a license or not”, Kanniainen says. “I think the regulator is responsible for creating a register.”
Consumers didn’t ask for PSD2.
The basics of open banking and PSD2 are not yet common knowledge, and as Kanniainen pointed out, the demand for PSD2 didn’t come from consumers – it came from the regulator’s side. That’s why it may not be so surprising that consumers are confused about the whole concept of the directive.
“There’s a huge learning curve for the average Joe on the street to know exactly what PSD2 is and what it means for open banking”, says Chris Moore from OP Lab. “If the media is highlighting that there’s a huge fraud risk in open banking and PSD2 that’s only going to make consumers more worried about providing their credentials to third party apps, even if they were perfectly secure.”
