PayBelgium newsletter 2022/1

Written By Sophie Peeters

Dear members and other PayBelgium enthusiasts 

First of all, our best wishes for a healthy and joyful 2022!

As for PayBelgium, this year will be a year of new beginnings and most of all of a continued, relentless focus on supporting our members in their innovation and growth ambitions. Below is a flavour of what is on our agenda for the next few months.

(i)                New Secretary General

We are very happy to inform you that Virginie Bauthier will become our new Secretary General. Virginie is a senior strategic communications specialist with extensive experience in PR, stakeholder engagement and change management. She has worked as a Stakeholder Engagement Manager for Faster Payments, London, where she was responsible for the development of the company’s communication and engagement strategy. She also updated their website and worked with their communications team to help increase engagement with diverse stakeholders. Virginie is passionate about the payment sector and keen to continue to contribute to the sector, focussing on Belgium from now on (where she recently moved back to). We are convinced that she is the right person for the job and that she will contribute to the reputation and credibility of our association. Please join us in welcoming Virginie and in congratulating her on her new role, which she will formally take up as from her official appointment during our general assembly in February (see also below).

(ii)               New members

We are welcoming three new members to our association:

  • Everifin (Usability Engineering Center), a Slovakian TPP passporting into Belgium, who are keen on contributing to our discussions on the status of open banking in Belgium. They have joined PayBelgium as a passported member on 1 January 2022.

  • FDW Consult Services BV, the treasury & finance consultancy firm of François De Witte.  François has a large experience in payments and holds various academic positions, including as a lecturer at the Febelfin Academy, where he teaches on PSD2 and Open Banking. He is also Director at Transfer1 and CKV. He joined PayBelgium as an associate member on 1 January 2022.

  • PayInnovate.eu, the regulatory consulting firm of our former Secretary General, Sophie Peeters. By founding Payinnovate.eu, Sophie turns back to her roots as a financial regulatory expert with a clear focus on payments. She will continue to strive for innovation in the payments sector in that capacity. PayInnovate.eu joined the associated membership of PayBelgium on 1 January 2022.

An overview of all our current members is available here. 

(iii)              Board composition

Upon the approval by the general assembly in February, Virginie Bauthier will join the board as new Secretary General. Sophie will also remain a board member and continue to help PayBelgium to achieve its goal to establish a more competitive and innovative payments landscape in Belgium. 

(iv)             Interactions with the NBB and other public bodies 

We will continue to have regular expert meetings with the NBB. The agenda for the next expert meeting is still being set but will include at least discussions on open banking, the review of the PSD2 and the NBB’s position towards the revised AML/CFT risk factor guidelines. We will provide further details to our members shortly, inviting them to suggest further items for the agenda.

Besides our individual expert meetings with the NBB, we will continue to discuss the future of retail payments together with other stakeholders from the private and public sector within the National Retail Payments Committee that the NBB set up for that purpose last year. We will also continue to be represented in the public-private partnership that the Treasury set up last year to further explore the benefits such partnership can bring in terms of fighting money laundering and countering terrorism financing. 

(v)             Working groups and their policy output 

As a reminder, we have working groups on each of the following topics:  

  • AML;

  • Data protection;

  • Information Security;

  • Open banking; and

  • Payments (dealing with, for example, direct access to payments infrastructure, cross-border payments, instant payments). 

They provide valuable policy output. For instance, looking back on the policy responses we submitted last year, one to mention again here is our response to the EBA consultation on Draft Regulatory Technical Standards amending RTS SCA & CSC. That consultation is very important for our TPP members as it concerns, among others, customer consent to the use of TPP services, which must currently be renewed every 90 days, including when the TPP accesses account information without the customer being present (background refresh). That causes a lot of friction and results in TPPs losing customers. We have therefore provided input to the EBA consultation on the subject, emphasising the need to at least extend the 90 days period.

Looking forward, we will continue to develop policy positions within our working groups. Upcoming next is the PayBelgium response to the EBA consultation on new remote customer onboarding guidelines. 

(vi)             Further cooperation with other associations 

We will continue to be a member of the European Payment Institutions Federation (EPIF), which empowers us both at EU level (through EPIF support) and at Belgian level (where we can then allocate more of our resources to). EPIF membership also provides us access to the European Payments Council (EPC) and the European Retail Payments Board (ERPB). Besides being a member of EPIF, we continue to have regular contacts with other associations with a goal that is similar to that of PayBelgium. Those include the European Third Party Providers Association (ETPPA), PSD2SIG (the Dutch equivalent of A78) and the Berlin Group. We will continue to explore partnerships with other associations to reinforce our message, in particular at the EU level. 

(vii)            PayBelgium general assembly

Also upcoming is our annual general assembly, during which we will agree, among others, on our policy priorities for 2022. Members will receive further details about this meeting soon.

(viii)           PayBelgium Academy

Upon the suggestion of our members, we are launching our own dedicated training programme for compliance officers in the payments sector. It will comprise both a foundation course for candidate compliance officers and a series of sessions to allow compliance officers to comply with their obligation of permanent training. Subscriptions for the foundation course will open soon. A special thanks to our associate member EY and to Ethikos, who kindly agreed to organise that course.

(ix)           Networking events for members 

Our members were able to finally meet in person in September last year, when we held the very first in-person PayBelgium networking event. It was a great occasion to connect. The sanitary situation permitting, we will organise another session soon (probably more towards the spring). 

As you can see, lots of initiatives are planned and we look forward to working together with our members towards a more competitive and innovative payments landscape in Belgium. 

On behalf of the entire PayBelgium board
Kind regards

Sophie Peeters
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