IBS Journal Supplement 2015
Greek banks sign for EBA’s MyBank for internet and mobile payments
The four largest banks in Greece have, via the Hellenic Bank Association, opted for the EBA Clearing’s MyBank for internet and mobile payment transactions. MyBank MD, John Broxis, says the decision comes after around two years of discussions and he expects them to be live around the turn of the year. MyBank is an online banking/e-
payment service which allows consumers to authorise secure online payments and transactions through their banking portal. It is underpinned by technology from Italian payment specialist, SIA, and was launched in March 2013, with an initial 28 Italian banks going live. It spans business-to- consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B).
Banks in Greece, as elsewhere, are see-
ing increased use in their country of Paypal and prepaid cards, says Broxis, and wanted to be part of this. However, the fear of dis- intermediation was perhaps less of a factor here than elsewhere, he says, with a larg- er incentive being around a reduction in
Greece’s heavy reliance on cash as a way to improve the economy. For banks, MyBank is also simple,
cheap and ‘reinforces the current account as the most important asset’, says Broxis. It allows them to compete against e-wal- lets and counter the opening up of access to current accounts by third party pay- ment providers, as envisaged with the next phase of the Payment Services Direc- tive (PSD2). And while the focus today is on payments, it could allow banks to add other services, such as e-mandates and identity services, still centred on the bank account. For the Greek banks, there are three
phases to introducing MyBank, comprising planning, development, and testing and certification, between each other and with the central bank. As an indication, Brox- is suggests three months for each phase, which leads to the expectation of cutover around the end of the year. The situation in Greece should be eased because the banks outsource a lot of their back office technol-
ogy to the clearing services provider, DIAS SA, which will handle the integra- tion for MyBank. The solution builds on two main assets, he says, namely the banks’ existing security and SEPA capabilities. The participating banks are Piraeus Bank, National Bank of Greece (NBG), Eurobank and Alpha Bank, which account for around 90 per cent of the market. In parallel with the technical work, the other main task will be preparing contracts with the merchants. The bulk of the volumes and value
through MyBank are still in Italy, says Brox- is, but these have been growing rapidly, with volumes doubling and value tripling here each three months for the last year or so. In addition, there are individual banks as adopters in France and Luxembourg, KBC Bank in Belgium, and some payment players, such as iDEAL in the Netherlands. Two other Eurozone banks have signed, he says, and his expectation is that MyBank will be available in six countries by the end of the year, with 30 million customers able to use it.
‘MyBank reinforces the current account
as the most important asset.’ John Broxis, MyBank
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© IBS Intelligence 2015
www.ibsintelligence.com
round-up: who’s doing what
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