Insights & Outlook 2023-2024

Dear reader,

It has already become a tradition: as in previous years, we have combined our preview of the payments industry with a look back, in the form of a selection of the Insights articles that we published in 2023. Without exception, these are articles in which we have tried to explain the most important trends in our industry for you.

To name a few, we have looked at the embedded finance trend, where SMEs purchase banking services directly from their financial software provider, thereby reducing their reliance on traditional banks.
Open banking is still an important development, driven by upcoming regulations from Europe (PSD3 and PSR) and a new voluntary scheme from the EPC, called SPAA.
We have investigated the abundance of proprietary payment systems in European public transport, and whether European travelers will soon be able to pay on public transport as easily as they are used to in their own country.
In the meantime, the ECB is steadily working on the European CBDC, the digital euro, and we are considering the public and political reactions to this project. Will the digital euro become a new means of payment that can help give all European citizens continued access to economic transactions, as the ECB envisions? Or is the new currency still seen as a “solution in search of a problem”, as skeptics claim?
And we spoke with leading subject matter experts such as Gijs Boudewijn and Mark Buitenhek, who shed their lucid light on developments in our field.

We hope you enjoy browsing through this online magazine, and -as ever- we look forward to working together to improve and grow your payments business!

Ronald te Velde & Eppo Heemstra