• 08 Jan, 2018 05:00 am

By the time the next edition of Financial IT is published, in early 2018, the revised Payments Services Directive (PSD2) and enhanced Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) will be in force across the European Union (EU). By the end of May 2018, banks that are operating in the EU will also have to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Through 2016 and 2017, banks and fintechs were preparing for the new regulations, or at the very least talking about them. In 2018, both groups will have to deal with the reality of the new regulations. This is in the context where both groups face mounting reputation risk. In many developed countries, the banks are not trusted by consumers or politicians. The announcement at the end of November of a Royal Commission that will look into Australia’s banks is merely the most recent example of this. Meanwhile, the surge in the value of Bitcoin has raised the possibility of a ‘bubble’ in the markets for crypto-currencies: it is not yet clear how this will affect perceptions of fintechs in general and those that are involved with blockchain in particular.