PSD2 (Payment Services Directive), Directive 2015/2366 on payment services in the internal market, a European directive that has the main aim of facilitating payments throughout Europe with greater security and promoting innovation of payment services over the Internet. This Directive has been transposed into the Spanish juridical order in Royal Decree Act 19/2018 on payment services and other urgent measures on financial matters.

These new regulations involve fundamental changes in the industry by allowing third party payment service providers access to Bank infrastructure, in this case, referred as account manager payment services, that is, the payment service provider that facilitates one or various payment accounts to an orderer and takes charge of their maintenance.

They seek, among other matters, to level the playing ground between countries and between payment service providers, thus reinforcing the position of the consumer, who benefits from greater competition. They also aim to standardise new methods of payment, such as those performed online or by mobile telephone, and for account managing payment service providers to open their payment services to third party companies, those called TPPs (Third Party Payment Service Providers). To sum up, third parties, TPPs, are provided access to the client payment accounts at a bank and the payments are initiated on their behalf, with prior authorisation by the account holder.

With PSD2, the payment service user may simply authorise the TPP to execute payments on its behalf through a bank account. That is, the TPP and the bank shall now communicate directly using an API (Application Program Interface).

The companies or professional developers (TPPs) who fulfil the requisites of registration, authorisation and supervision by the competent authorities of each State, may use the APIs, consult their technical specifications and easily test them in a test environment called sandbox. They may also resolve doubts or incidents that arise during the configuration process, through the following electronic mail address: psd2.sandbox.soporte@redsys.es