The directory is open to Account Servicing Payment Service Providers (AS-PSPs) and their service providers. It provides these providers with a key element for establishing compliance with the Access-to-Account requirements of the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2).

Aside from pooling the information provided by the different national registers, the directory will also contain additional operational information to help provide some transparency to Third Party Providers (TPPs) and AS-PSPs, especially with regard to cases where brand names differ from those of the legal entities that are actually accessing the account.

Following a stakeholder consultation started in 2016, PRETA developed the Directory of Open Banking Europe with the support of more than 40 AS-PSPs and Service Providers (SPs) to help the market in its PSD2 Access-to-Account compliance processes by providing a standardised source of information containing both regulatory and operational data.

The directory was delivered in January 2019 and today covers all the national registers that are currently available for verification requests, with the remainder to be added as soon as the respective national transpositions have been completed.

“The completion of this work marks a major milestone in the journey towards PSD2, and it has only been possible with the support of over 40 participants around Europe as well as ongoing dialogue with National Competent Authorities across Europe.
The road to PSD2 Access to Account is long and a centralised directory will provide interoperability between the various market participants.” said John Broxis, Managing Director of PRETA/Open Banking Europe.

Open Banking Europe continues to work in other topics such as: operational data to provide transparency to TPPs, QTSP engagement group, common understanding of eIDAS certificates, identification when four party models are used, the security and identification model for PSD2 APIs.