The European Union is in the process of updating its regulatory regime for payment services to reflect the developing nature of the payment services market. The European Commission’s proposed revised Payment Services Directive (“PSD2”) will certainly broaden the net of regulation to cover a wider range of payments-related services. But questions remain about the scope and effect of the European regulatory regime that the PSD2 does not fully answer.

The first EU Payment Services Directive (“PSD”) was adopted in 2007 and became law in most EU member states in 2009. In July 2013, the European Commission published its proposal for PSD2, which it hopes will be adopted in early 2014 and implemented by member states by 2016.