The European Credit Sector Associations (ECSAs) has urged for the removal of payments from the remit of the European Digital Identity plan.
Concerns from the group revolve around the specific wording of the The European Digital Identity (eIDAS 2.0) proposal, with it raising issues surrounding the full payment sphere being included in the plans.
A statement from the group said: “The current wording seems to imply that the full payment sphere is included in eIDAS 2.0 on a mandatory basis.”
ECSAs added that action should be taken ‘in order to avoid the mandatory nature of the acceptance of the EUDIW in terms of strong customer authentication on payments, limiting such mandatory acceptance to the verification of the user’s identity only’.
It warned of significant investments being needed should the changes be implemented, with the financial sector being potentially impacted.
The group stated: “If widely used cards and payment specifications were included in the new EUDIW Infrastructure, huge investments would be required not only in the financial sector, but also for the overall acceptance network.
“This could possibly result in disproportionate costs for merchants and service industries that accept card payments in accordance with the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2).
“In addition, deleting payments from the scope would also solve the general issue of liability banks would face. The proposal in its current form does not sufficiently address the question of liability, which impedes applying its provisions to payments. This is why the ECSAs call upon the legislators to keep payments out of the scope of the Digital Identity Regulation.”
