It has now been two weeks since the latest PSD2 deadline, where European banks were obligated to provide a sandbox to third-party service providers (TPPs). According to recent surveys, around 40 % of the banks under the regulation failed to meet this deadline.
While it’s still unclear what it means for banks who don’t meet the deadline, it’s obvious how it will affect TPPs who relied on the banks to provide a testing facility.
TPPs use sandboxes to test their implementations against synthetic data, and there’s no better way to try out the APIs than testing them against banks’ sandboxes. Many TPPs are eager to start with the development to make sure that they can offer high quality services for payment service users.
Another challenge for TPPs is that each bank and financial institution is developing APIs in a slightly different way. This means that TPPs will need to adapt to each and everyone of these APIs. For those who want to build innovative and user friendly services this presents a problem, because they will need to put an effort in adapting the integrations to each bank instead of focusing on their core business. To support TPPs, Enfuce has created a turn-key platform for TPPs and banks who want to act as a TPP in the value chain. Enfuce API Hub acts as a hub and an integrator to all banks.
The business opportunities through TPPs’ services will in the long run benefit us all; consumers, banks and fintechs. Therefore it’s important to open up the sandboxes for developers as soon as possible and start collaborating.
Petri Kukkonen
Enfuce Financial Services
