Visa Europe and the PSD
After lengthy and difficult negotiations the
Payment Service Directive (PSD) was finally adopted by the Council
and the Parliament in April 2007, and had to be implemented by the
Member States by 1 November 2009.
The PSD has the aim of harmonising rules and conditions for
providing payment services in the EU, and forms an important
element of the SEPA project. The PSD primarily regulates the
relationship between a payment service provider and a payment user
and consequently, from Visa Europe’s perspective, covers both
issuing and acquiring.
The PSD is an important cornerstone both for the
establishment of SEPA and the Internal Market for payments, and may
be followed by additional initiatives by the
Commission.
The PSD aims to facilitate the creation of the Internal Market
for payments with a high level of consumer protection. As well as
providing a common legal basis for all EU payments (excluding cash
and cheques), the PSD identified six types of organisation that can
offer payment services: credit institutions, e-money institutions,
payment institutions, post office giro, central banks, and various
government organisations.
A company or organisation that falls within these six
categories, and which is authorised and supervised as appropriate,
can apply to become a member of Visa Europe. Such members can then
issue Visa cards, or offer an acquiring service allowing their
customers to accept Visa payments.