/biz/ - Business & Finance

PSD2 is the primary reason I became involved with ChainLink. For context, I work in the Financial Services sector in the EMEA region, and I can tell you it is all about PSD2. In 2019, every European Financial Institution must provide API support for payment initiation and account enquiry made by the incoming onslaught of new Fintechs.

The banking landscape in Europe will change radically in a short period as Europeans begin to take advantage of the latest technology offered by Fintechs to meet their banking needs in today's world. Blockchain technology has come along at precisely the right time, and DLT has become almost as big of a buzz-word as Fintech itself. Also, in extraordinarily good timing comes ChainLink, a service that bridges the gap between Fintechs using DLT and Financial Institution APIs.

Behind the shiny new APIs lies the prize that SmartContract have evidently positioned themselves on - legacy payment systems that will accept nothing but the payment formats they were originally designed for. This format is likely to be the new (actually >15 years old) ISO 20022 XML format. Any Fintechs wishing to make use of the new APIs can bet for sure that the Banks will not be converting formats on their behalf and instead will need to submit instructions in ISO 20022 format.