The European Payments Council’s first SEPA Payment Account Access (SPAA) rulebook – the Tink take

As part of the SPAA multi-stakeholder group (MSG), we are pleased to see the development of the first rulebook, and be part of creating a more competitive and innovative payments ecosystem. We like the broad range of open banking payments that SPAA presents, surpassing the current level of uses – such as supporting multi-counterparty payments to increase the effectiveness of marketplaces. Merchants of all types will see benefits of SPAA – reduced costs, increased efficiency and secure payments – and we’re eager to see the development of a ‘minimum viable product.’

If SPAA is adopted and appropriately supported by payment schemes, the EU may be poised to pass the UK as the market leader in open banking payments. The advances SPAA makes for frictionless Pay by Bank experiences across use cases, and support for innovative new models (such as payments to multiple counterparties) have the potential to bring savings and operational efficiencies to merchants – as well as security with new developments in Strong Customer Authentication (SCA).

The SPAA rulebook is a fantastic forward-looking scheme for how commerce of today and tomorrow will work. And it looks to provide a framework to support a new frontier of account-to-account payments for merchants. But it needs a strong payment scheme to support it. The data exchange for SPAA payments should be supported by wider adoption of Instant Payments – and this complements the European Commission’s recent proposed legislation.

Developing default asset fees may entice banks to join the scheme earlier, given commercial opportunities. But the SPAA MSG should scrutinise any fee proposal, and the base costs, against market expectations. In principle, SPAA payments should carry a fair-market value that is reflected in their pricing. Only then will the benefits of SPAA, such as the potential of Dynamic Recurring Payments to remove both friction and costs associated with direct debits, be realised for merchants.