The Open Banking Europe initiative was launched in June 2017 to support account-servicing payment service providers (AS-PSPs) and third-party providers (TPPs) offering payment initiation services and account information services in meeting the access-to-account requirements of the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2).

The OBE directory will provide a central platform to help AS-PSPs to check access rights of TPPs and will also help TPPs locate AS-PSP developer portals and other operational data that are otherwise scattered across multiple sites.

The project is funded today by 32 banks and service providers who have worked together to deliver a centralised, pan-European PSD2 directory providing relevant information on AS-PSPs and TPPs for authorised access-to-account services. The OBE directory is already in place and used by banks and service providers to measure the impact on their systems and learn about the operational implications generated by PSD2.

Phase 2 will add more features to the directory and is also open to new participants. It is planned to finalise phase 2 by the end of the year with the aim of the enhanced version of the directory being operational by 2 January 2019.

"The industry has come a long way since the end of last year," said John Broxis, Managing Director of PRETA. "In December, we had no standard for PSD2 e-IDAS, no common understanding of how access checks work, and no platform for aggregating the data found in 31 national competent authority directories. Thanks to the Open Banking Europe initiative, we now have these elements, and as AS-PSPs and TPPs are increasingly becoming aware of this new tool and the needs it fulfils in the access-to-account context, we continue to onboard potential future users."

The Open Banking Europe initiative is also looking for testing and conformance tools to test the APIs of participating banks.