Payment Services Directive (PSD2)

(34) This Directive does not substantially change the conditions for granting and maintaining authorisation as payment institutions. As in Payment Services Directive (PSD1) — repealed, the conditions include prudential requirements proportionate to the operational and financial risks faced by such bodies in the course of their business. In that connection, there is a need for a sound regime of initial capital combined with on-going capital which could be elaborated in a more sophisticated way in due course depending on the needs of the market. Due to the range of variety in the payment services area, this Directive should allow various methods combined with a certain range of supervisory discretion to ensure that the same risks are treated the same way for all payment service providers. The requirements for the payment institutions should reflect the fact that payment institutions engage in more specialised and limited activities, thus generating risks that are narrower and easier to monitor and control than those that arise across the broader spectrum of activities of credit institutions. In particular, payment institutions should be prohibited from accepting deposits from users and should be permitted to use funds received from users only for rendering payment services. The required prudential rules including the initial capital should be appropriate to the risk relating to the respective payment service provided by the payment institution. Payment service providers that provide only payment initiation services should be considered to be of a medium risk with regard to the initial capital.