DMA - DORA - Instant Payments - Celebrating 20 years of support to the Smart Payments Industry - SPA Newsletter April 2024

Dear Colleagues,

A warm welcome to you all as we enter our 20th anniversary year.

When SPA first commenced its market monitoring service back in 2006, over 340 million smart cards were shipped globally. Today this figure has grown to over 3 billion cards – a testament to the enduring relevance of smart card technologies that continue to deliver end-to-end security, portability and convenience for users.

In this newsletter we take a look at some key industry developments and review the workstreams currently underway at SPA.

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) promise

SPA has published a paper that provides insights on the Digital Markets Act (DMA). In particular, how it opens the door to a new era of standardization and interoperability that will accelerate new payment innovations across the EU.

The impact of the DMA is illustrated by Apple’s recent announcement in relation to changes to contactless payments on iOS. These include new APIs that will enable third parties to use NFC technology in their banking and wallet apps throughout the European Economic Area (EEA).

This marks an important step forward towards using NFC as an alternative to QR codes for proximity/ instant payments in Europe.

Instant Payments

Following the EU’s announcement in November 2023 that it had reached a provisional political agreement with the European Parliament on the new instant payments proposal, a number of exciting new initiatives have already begun to spring up across Europe.

These include EPI (European Payments Initiative), a new pan-European payments system featuring 16 stakeholders, due to launch later this year. Meanwhile, the first rule book of the SEPA Account Access Scheme (SPAA) has been published together with an API security framework.

As momentum around instant payments gathers pace, SPA is actively promoting the re-use of EMV contactless technologies/standards combined with the NFC interface as the ideal way to enable a frictionless and secure instant payments experience for users at the point-of-sale.

Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA)

Following inclusion of the first set of four DORA regulatory technical standards in the EPSG Volume Book of Requirements at the close of 2023, SPA is now engaged in reviewing the second batch of six draft standards and guidelines which were published in January 2024.

SPA has submitted a response to the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) public consultation on the second batch of Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS). Our position will soon be made public.

Looking ahead

As we move into our third decade, SPA will be marking this significant anniversary this year. Stay tuned for future announcements.

Best regards

Alain Martin

President of the SPA