The European Commission's payment services reform package — PSD3 (the proposed third Payment Services Directive) and the PSR (a directly-applicable Payment Services Regulation) — is in advanced legislative process. The reform consolidates and modernises the framework established by PSD2 (Directive (EU) 2015/2366) and EMD2 (Directive 2009/110/EC), with structural changes to scope, supervision, safeguarding and authorisation.
This note records where we are and what it does — and does not — change for the firm's recovery posture.
Where we are
The Commission tabled the package in June 2023. The Council of the European Union adopted its general approach. The European Parliament progressed its position through committee and reached plenary. Inter-institutional negotiations followed. A final political agreement and adoption sequence will be confirmed in due course by the institutions. National transposition of PSD3 follows adoption; the PSR enters into force as a Regulation without transposition.
This page is not a regulatory tracker and will not be updated to reflect every procedural step. For institutional readers tracking the live position, the European Parliament's Legislative Observatory (OEIL) is the canonical source.
What the reform changes structurally
- Consolidation of PSD2 and EMD2. Payment institutions and electronic money institutions are brought under a single licensing framework. The EMI category is retained for safeguarding purposes but the prudential regime is unified.
- Direct applicability via the PSR. Conduct-of-business rules, transparency rules and consumer protections move to a Regulation, eliminating divergent national transposition.
- Strengthened safeguarding. Safeguarding obligations under the new framework are more explicit on the segregation of client funds, periodic reconciliation and disclosure to supervisors.
- Authorisation transparency. The Commission has indicated alignment between licence registers across Member States, addressing the long-standing difficulty of confirming the precise scope of a counterparty's authorisation.
What it does not change for accrued claims
The firm's recovery posture engages accrued claims under the regulatory framework as it stood at the time the conduct giving rise to the claim occurred. PSD2 and EMD2, and the national transpositions of each, remain the operative framework for the substantial majority of files now in the firm's pipeline. PSD3 / PSR does not retrospectively alter those obligations.
What PSD3 / PSR does change is the procedural and supervisory landscape into which a recovery is pursued. Where supervisory engagement is opened on a file, the firm is increasingly able to engage with supervisors that are themselves preparing for the new framework — and that institutional context is operationally material.
Practical posture
The firm continues to act on accrued claims under PSD2 and EMD2. Where the underlying merchant services agreement, the conduct of the counterparty and the supervisory framework engage provisions that have a direct equivalent in PSD3 / PSR, that equivalence is recorded on the file but does not alter the operative recovery framework. Where a file's regulatory exposure spans the transition from the old framework to the new one — for example, conduct that began under PSD2 and continued past the application date of the PSR — the firm sequences the recovery to address each framework on its own terms.
For merchants whose claims are clearly accrued, the timing of PSD3 / PSR is not a reason to delay engagement. The framework under which the claim arose is the framework under which it is pursued.