PSD2 - A Catalyst for the Future of Retail Banking : Banks’ strategies to reach a competitive advantage from PSD2 in Sweden

Sammanfattning: The new EU regulation, revised payment services directive (PSD2), will change how the retail banking market works today. It will obligate banks, with the consumer’s consent, to provide access to account information and thus open up the market for new actors. This study aims to provide an understanding of the effects PSD2 will have on the retail banking market in Sweden and how the banks will act to cope with the changes it entails. There is a lack of academic articles on PSD2, and the reports that do exist are to the greater extent published by consultants. Hence, this report seeks to bridge that gap by exploring banks from a strategic point of view, taking a starting point in the theory of competitive advantage and open innovation, in order to analyse different banks’ strategies that they are considering when PSD2 is enforced. This will be a cornerstone for understanding the future development of the Swedish retail banking market. To gain in-depth knowledge about the banks’ strategies to cope with PSD2, a case study has been made where 10 semi-structured interviews have been conducted with 10 different banks operating in Sweden - this represents the greater majority of all banks in the Swedish retail banking market. From the empirical findings in this report, it is clear that very few banks consider that only complying to PSD2 is a good strategic alternative. Instead, most banks see greater business opportunities in PSD2 and from this study it is evident that the market is heading towards an open banking approach. However, the path towards open banking differs between banks. All banks will focus on becoming compliant but due to differences in size, capabilities and resources, the banks try to differentiate themselves through different approaches. Some banks will attempt an open banking approach immediately, while others will start by becoming a producer of services and from there decide whether or not to move into open banking. What has been made crystal clear from the analysis of the empirical findings, is that no banks will start off by becoming a distributor of more advanced customer data to third parties.