23 March 2017

The Economist: An earthquake in European banking

New European rules will open the door to a host of innovative services that analyse transactions, so “an app could tell you there’s a cheaper mortgage available and start the switching process for you.”

To date, despite dire warnings, European retail banking has been remarkably unscathed by technology-driven disruption. Customers stay loyal, and banks still do the most of the lending. Financial-technology (“fintech”) companies are beginning to mount a challenge, most conspicuously in the online-payments industry in northern Europe: Sofort, iDEAL and other fintech firms conduct over half of online transactions in Germany and the Netherlands, for example. But their reach is more limited elsewhere in Europe. Physical payments are still overwhelmingly made with cash or bank cards.

One reason incumbents have proved so resilient is that fintech firms lack the customer-transaction information they need to provide many financial services. Banks can be slow to respond to requests for access to such data, or may block them altogether for security reasons. It is often either cumbersome or insecure for customers to share their own information. Banks, on the other hand, have easy access to transaction data, which they can use to sell their customers other services.

Regulators, however, are about to transform the landscape. The Payments Services Directive 2 (PSD2), due to be implemented by EU members in January 2018, aims to kick-start competition while making payments more secure. Provided the customer has given explicit consent, banks will be forced to share customer-account information with licensed financial-services providers.

This should change the way payment services work. They could become more integrated into the internet-browsing experience—enabling, for example, one-click bank transfers, at least for low-value payments. Security for payments above €30 ($32) will be tightened up, with customers having to provide two pieces of secret information (“strong authentication”) to wave through a transaction.

With access to account data, meanwhile, fintech firms could offer customers budgeting advice, or guide them towards higher-interest savings accounts or cheaper mortgages. Those with limited credit histories may find it easier to borrow, too, since richer transaction data should mean more sophisticated credit checks.

None of this is good news for established banks. Profitability is already threatened by rock-bottom interest rates. According to Deloitte, a consultancy, banks’ lockhold on payments serves as a handy source of income, earning European banks €128bn in 2015, around a quarter of retail-banking revenue. Many see PSD2 as a threat to their business models; they fear becoming the “dumb pipes” of the financial system. In a survey conducted last year by Strategy&, a unit of PwC, a professional-services firm, 68% of responding banks believed that PDS2 would leave them in a weaker position. The same proportion feared that they would lose control of interactions with customers.

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