Let’s start with the biggie, the GDPR.
The GDPR will become law in May 2018. Covering all processing of personal data, the GDPR applies to any organisation -
Failure to comply with the regulations can land you in very hot water. A breach of the GDPR could lead to fines of up to €20 million or 4 per cent of global annual turnover for the preceding financial year (whichever is the greater).
Ouch.
To help avoid a considerable penalty, I recommend asking yourself a few questions:
Being able to answer these questions won’t just help you stay out of regulatory trouble; it’ll strengthen the trust between you and your customers.
The Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) is due to be implemented in early 2018, but at the time of writing, the exact date has still not been confirmed.
Designed to increase customer protection, the PSD2 will also increase competition and innovation in the payment services market.
How to explain it? Well, it’s essentially about third party access to customers’ online accounts and payment services. The regulation requires banks to give third parties secure, regulated access to customer accounts in the same way as if the customer had given their explicit permission for it.
To do this, banks must use customer identity verification and authentication through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).
This opens the way for two new types of service (regulated under PSD2) -
For retailers, the directive will affect how customers give you permission to access their money, without an intermediary. Yes, it’s going to make buying things even easier for the customer. But it also makes digital security a touch more problematic. We’re going to need strong customer authentication to guarantee the safety of the customer’s payment and purchase data.
So think about -
If you can see through the regulations and tease out the opportunities, you can keep everyone happy: the regulatory bodies, your customers, and your shareholders.