News & Insights

Widely regarded as the more respectable face of crypto, stablecoins are poised to become an integral part of the financial system’s future. With their ability to stabilise prices and in conjunction with harmonised regulations, stablecoins hold the promise of improving access to financial services. During EBAday 2020 in November, Josje Fio...

A much-discussed (and much-hyped) topic among central banks is the issuing of currency in a digitalised form: a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). It is claimed that CBDCs could have a significant impact on the payment infrastructure and ecosystem because they could change the rules of the game. However, the various existing CBDC imple...

Today we celebrate the first ‘birthday’ of the Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on Strong Customer Authentication (SCA). 14 September 2019 was the date that marked the go-live of key security requirements for third party access to payment accounts (XS2A). Since then, banks have been required to open up certain payment functionalities ...

Sixteen major Eurozone banks have come together in the European Payments Initiative (EPI) to launch a new payment system aimed at taking on rival card schemes and the threat posed by Chinese and US big-tech firms. Although previous pan-European collaboration projects (e.g. Monnet, Eaps, Payfair) have not been perceived as a great success,...

The EU’s fifth Anti Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5) urged the adjustment of the implementation rules of the Wwft (the Dutch Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act)[1]. In this context, the Wwft has been amended accordingly. The new legislation has come into effect in the Netherlands on 21 May this year.As highlighte...