The DSA has a broad scope and regulates many aspects of digital services, including in the fintech space.
By Gail E. Crawford, Jean-Luc Juhan, Susan Kempe-Mueller, Deborah J. Kirk, Lars Kjølbye, Elisabetta Righini, Sven B. Völcker, Ben Leigh, Victoria Wan, and Amy Smyth
As a key part of the EU’s digital regulation strategy, the Digital Services Act (DSA) seeks to modernise legal frameworks and create a safer and more open digital environment.
It regulates many aspects of digital services, including liability for online content and services, targeted advertising, know-your-business-customer requirements, transparency for users, and managing systemic platform risks.
The DSA will potentially impact a range of actors operating within the fintech space — directly and indirectly — such as:
- Providers hosting digital assets platforms and exchanges: Providers who host websites and platforms where digital assets and related content, including NFTs, are traded or displayed may be covered by the DSA’s obligations applicable to online platforms and online marketplaces. Such obligations include periodic transparency reporting of user numbers (in force from 17 February 2023), and may also require updates to terms and conditions, notice and action mechanisms, and user interfaces.
- Providers servicing online platforms, online marketplaces, and social media: The DSA may have implications for the wider platform technology supply chain in the fintech space, including for providers of infrastructure, hosting, payments and other services to DSA-regulated online platforms, marketplaces, exchanges, and social media. For example, such providers (who may not be directly in scope of the DSA themselves) may be subject to contractual requirements related to the DSA flowing-down from their regulated platform, marketplace, and social media customers.
In this article, Latham lawyers explain how the various requirements of the DSA apply to the range of online services in scope and provide practical guidance on the implications of the DSA for providers of those online services.