Various changes relating to payment services will be made in early 2019. These changes relate to a new European directive: the PSD2 (Payment Services Directive), which you may already be familiar with. The most significant change is that you will be able to give a company or organisation access to your current accounts.
One of the main objectives of PSD2 is to boost competition and innovation in the field of payment services. Soon, not only banks, but also other companies and organisations will be able to process payments and initiate payment services. However, they will only be able to do so with your permission.
You can provide a company or organisation with access to your current accounts, thereby allowing them to initiate payments on your behalf or to view your current account details.
Access to your transactions from the past 18 months. You might give a third party, such as an accountant, permission to view your account details in order to consolidate your account statements and do your accounts.
You can give a third party permission to submit a payment order on your behalf. Or give an online store permission to initiate a payment on your behalf when making a purchase online, for example. The online store then initiates a payment for you, just as you do now with iDEAL or your credit card.
That depends. A company or organisation can only access your current accounts or initiate payments on your behalf with your express permission. If you do not give your permission, nothing will change for you.
When making transfers within the European Economic Area (EU countries + Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein), it is now only possible to share costs (SHARED) with your trade partner. You can no longer have the beneficiary (BEN) or the initiator (OUR) pay all of the costs. Companies are also no longer allowed to apply a surcharge for debit and credit card payments (e.g. Mastercard or Visa).
It is of course important that you continue to take good care when it comes to your banking, and you should make a careful assessment before choosing to share your current account details. Bear in mind that the business or organisation you are granting access to your current accounts will be able to see your entire transaction history over the past 18 months for a period of 90 days. It is also important to remember that ABN AMRO is never a party in any conflict between you and the business in question.
