As contactless transactions boom, EU regulators publish draft guidelines on the interplay between the GDPR and PSD2.

By Fiona M. Maclean, Christian F. McDermott, Calum Docherty, and Amy Smyth

Last year, more than half of all payments in the UK were made by card and contactless methods, while cash made up less than a quarter of all payments for the first time, according to the trade association UK Finance. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift towards a cashless society, as governments across Europe encourage citizens and businesses to adopt cashless solutions. At the start of the lockdown, in the spring, ATM transaction volumes in the UK fell 62% year on year, while the daily cash transaction volumes dropped by as much as 90% in Spain, according to the Financial Times.

Call for input: Industry needs to engage as the FCA moves forward on its transformative vision for open finance.

By Stuart Davis and Brett Carr

Imagine a world in which you could access your bank accounts, credit cards, mortgage, pensions, savings accounts and ISAs, brokerage account, home and car insurance, life insurance, and other financial products on one user interface or app, even if each of those products is held with a different provider. Then, imagine that the app could provide innovative financial management services across all of those products, such as automated switching to the best products, holistic investment advice and budgeting, and sweeping of excess cash into products yielding a better return than today’s current accounts. This world may be closer than you think, and it will likely have profound impacts for incumbent and new financial services business.