How Ireland’s EU Council Presidency could shape the future of payments

From 1 July to 31 December 2026, Ireland will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, placing it at the centre of negotiations on some of the most significant payments and open banking reforms currently under discussion.

During this six-month period, Ireland will help steer discussions on the proposed Third Payment Services Directive (PSD3), the Payment Services Regulation (PSR), and the continued rollout of SEPA Instant Payments. The Presidency role does not allow Ireland to determine outcomes unilaterally, but it does provide substantial influence over legislative priorities, negotiation timelines, and the progression of key files through the Council.

For businesses operating across Europe’s payments ecosystem, the outcome of these discussions could have a lasting impact on compliance requirements, customer experiences, open banking adoption, and market competition.

Ireland enters the Presidency with strong credentials. As a leading European fintech hub with a well-established financial services sector and practical experience supporting open banking infrastructure, it is well positioned to contribute to discussions on how these frameworks should be implemented in practice.

This article explores how Ireland’s Presidency could influence the next phase of open banking regulation in Europe, what a successful regulatory outcome could look like for payment providers and businesses, and the key issues likely to shape progress over the coming years.

Key points:

• Ireland holds the EU Council Presidency from 1 July to 31 December 2026
• PSD3 and PSR remain under active negotiation.
• Ireland can influence the pace, priorities, and direction of legislative discussions during its Presidency.
• Adoption of SEPA Instant Payments remains uneven across EU member states.
• Fire’s view: greater API standardisation, stronger liability frameworks, and reduced regulatory fragmentation remain key priorities for the payments industry.

What the EU Council Presidency Actually Does

The EU Council Presidency does not set policy, but it plays a central role in how legislation progresses through the decision-making process. The Presidency chairs Council meetings, helps set priorities for the six-month term, and works to build consensus among member states on legislative proposals.

This makes the role particularly relevant for EU payments regulation open banking, where proposals such as the PSD3 and the PSR remain under negotiation. While the European Commission has proposed the reforms, agreement must still be reached between member states and the European Parliament before the final framework is adopted.

PSD3 and PSR form part of the European Commission’s broader payments reform agenda, alongside related initiatives such as SEPA Instant Payments and the European Payments Initiative (EPI).

Together, these reforms aim to improve competition, strengthen consumer protections, reduce fraud, and support a more integrated European payments market.

From a regulatory perspective, public bodies such as the Central Bank of Ireland and the Department of Finance continue to monitor how these developments interact with national regulatory frameworks and the wider financial services sector.

Ireland is scheduled to hold the Presidency from 1 July to 31 December 2026, following Cyprus. The Presidency’s formal programme is expected to be published shortly before the term begins. While the final agenda has yet to be confirmed, ongoing negotiations on PSD3, PSR, and the continued rollout of instant payments are likely to feature prominently among the priorities shaping the future of open banking across the EU.

Why Ireland is well placed to influence this

Ireland’s position is not just a matter of timing. It is home to the European headquarters of many major payment platforms, processors, and card networks. This means Irish regulators, policymakers, and industry groups have direct exposure to how payments infrastructure operates in practice and at scale. Few EU member states have the same level of proximity to the payments industry.

The Central Bank of Ireland has extensive experience supervising payment institutions and electronic money institutions. Combined with Ireland’s established fintech sector, this has created a strong base of knowledge and expertise across the payments ecosystem.

Ireland has also seen the practical challenges of open banking implementation under PSD2, including inconsistent APIs, varying approaches to screen scraping, and uneven development of open banking services. These lessons are directly relevant to ongoing discussions on PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation.

This combination of regulatory experience and industry proximity positions Ireland to contribute meaningfully to the next phase of EU payments regulation and open banking.

The legislation that matters right now

There are three areas of EU payments regulation and open banking where Ireland’s presidency can make a tangible difference.

PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation

The European Commission published proposals for PSD3 and the PSR in June 2023. Together, these proposals form the EU’s broader payments reform package aimed at updating and strengthening the existing PSD2 framework.

The PSR is particularly significant for open banking as it establishes directly applicable rules across all member states, helping to improve consistency in areas such as access to payment account data, authentication requirements, and technical standards for application programming interfaces (APIs). PSD3 and PSR are designed to operate together, with PSD3 setting the directive-level framework and PSR providing harmonised operational rules.

Negotiations between the European Commission, European Parliament, and Council are ongoing under the EU legislative process. Key areas of discussion include liability allocation, conditions for third-party access to account information, fraud prevention, and the development of standardised API requirements. These elements are central to how EU payments regulation and open banking will evolve in practice.

The proposals sit alongside broader industry and policy developments, including the European Payments Initiative (EPI). Within this wider context, policymakers and industry participants are also exploring enhancements to open banking capabilities, such as variable recurring payments and confirmation of payee, although these remain subject to final agreement at EU level.

Liability frameworks and consumer protection

Liability remains a key issue in negotiations. PSD2 was designed for card payments and does not fully align with account-to-account payments enabled by open banking.

Clearer rules on liability allocation, authentication requirements, and consumer recourse are widely seen as essential to improving trust, reducing friction, and supporting wider adoption of open banking-enabled payments.

SEPA Instant

The SEPA Instant Credit Transfer framework has been strengthened through the EU’s Instant Payments Regulation, adopted in 2024. The regulation introduces requirements for euro-denominated instant payments, with obligations being phased in over time across payment service providers in the EU.

Adoption remains uneven across member states, reflecting differences in technical readiness and implementation timelines. As a result, ensuring consistency and addressing interoperability challenges will be important for enabling reliable cross-border instant payments.

SEPA Instant provides a foundational layer for real-time euro payments, which supports the development of account-to-account payment use cases at scale within the broader EU payments and open banking ecosystem.

What good looks like: Fire’s view

As an open banking provider, Fire has operated within the current regulatory framework and observed both its strengths and limitations. From our perspective, four areas would have the greatest impact on EU payments regulation and open banking adoption across the EU.

Clear, consistent API standards

The PSR presents an opportunity to improve consistency across member states. Common standards for API access, performance, authentication, and error handling would help reduce complexity for businesses operating across multiple markets and support wider adoption of open banking services.

Stronger support for enhanced open banking services

The PSR provides an opportunity to enable more advanced open banking functionality, including variable recurring payments and confirmation of payee. Clear requirements, implementation timelines, and effective oversight would help create greater certainty for open banking providers developing services in this area.

A clearer liability framework

Clear and proportionate liability rules are important for both providers and consumers. Greater certainty around authentication, allocation of responsibility, and consumer recourse would strengthen trust in open banking payments and reduce barriers to adoption.

Reduced fragmentation across the EU

One of the objectives of transitioning from PSD2 to the PSR is to improve consistency across member states. Limiting unnecessary national divergence would help create a more predictable environment for businesses and support the development of a more unified open banking market across Europe.

The risk of getting it wrong

Ireland’s Presidency provides an opportunity to help advance some of the most significant developments in EU payments regulation. If progress is limited, many of the challenges that exist today may persist.

Without greater consistency in the PSR, open banking could continue to develop unevenly across member states, increasing complexity for providers operating across multiple markets.

Where regulatory frameworks remain fragmented or unclear, established payment methods are likely to retain a structural advantage. This can make it more difficult for open banking services to scale and compete consistently across the EU.

Regulatory clarity is also an important factor in investment decisions. Markets with clearer rules and predictable implementation often attract greater infrastructure investment and product development. Continued uncertainty around the future shape of open banking regulation could slow innovation and adoption across both consumer and business use cases.

The outcome of ongoing negotiations will therefore be significant not only for the regulatory framework itself, but for the long-term development of open banking across Europe.

What this means for businesses operating across Europe

For businesses operating across multiple EU markets, the outcome of these negotiations is directly relevant to payment strategy and infrastructure planning.

While the legislative process is still underway, businesses must continue to make technology and product decisions within the current regulatory framework. This requires building payment infrastructure that can operate today while remaining flexible enough to adapt as EU payments regulation evolves.

In practice, this means prioritising open banking connectivity that can support future requirements around data access, payment payment initiation services, and value-added payment features. It also means working with an open banking payment gateway that can support scalable integration, real-time payment status visibility, and structured reconciliation capabilities.

More broadly, open banking is increasingly being treated as core payments infrastructure rather than a standalone technical integration. Organisations best positioned for future regulatory and market developments are likely to be those that design flexibility into their payments architecture from the outset.

Ireland’s moment to lead

Ireland assumes the EU Council Presidency at an important point for open banking and wider European payments regulation.

The Central Bank of Ireland supervises a significant number of payment and open banking firms operating across Europe, while Ireland’s fintech and payments sector has extensive experience of how these frameworks work in practice. This gives Ireland both proximity to the industry and a strong understanding of the opportunities and challenges shaping the market.

From Fire’s perspective, this creates an opportunity to help progress a more consistent and effective framework for open banking across the EU. Priorities include clearer API standards, stronger support for enhanced open banking services, a more defined liability framework, and continued progress on SEPA Instant adoption.

Many of these issues are already part of the ongoing legislative and policy discussions. The Presidency provides an opportunity to help build consensus and maintain momentum as negotiations continue.

Ireland has the experience, industry presence, and timing to contribute meaningfully to the future direction of EU payments regulation and open banking. The next six months will show how far that opportunity can be taken.

Talk to Fire

If you’d like to understand how open banking can support your business today, visit our contact page.

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FAQs

What is the EU Council Presidency and how does it influence legislation?

The EU Council Presidency is a rotating six-month role held by each EU member state. It chairs Council meetings, coordinates legislative work, and helps build agreement between member states on EU laws. While it does not set policy unilaterally, it can influence the pace and direction of negotiations.

What payments legislation is currently being negotiated at EU level?

The main legislation shaping EU payments regulation open banking is PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation (PSR). Alongside these proposals, the SEPA Instant Regulation is being rolled out across the EU.

What is PSD3 and how does it differ from PSD2 for businesses using open banking?

PSD3 is the proposed successor to PSD2 and is designed to modernise the EU payments framework. A key change is that many open banking provisions would move into the Payment Services Regulation (PSR), helping to create more consistent rules across member states.

How does open banking regulation differ across EU member states right now?

PSD2 was implemented differently across member states, resulting in variations in API standards, authentication requirements, and open banking services. The proposed Payment Services Regulation (PSR) aims to reduce this fragmentation by creating a more consistent framework across the EU.

What is the Payment Services Regulation and why does it matter?

The Payment Services Regulation (PSR) is a proposed EU regulation that would create more consistent rules for payments and open banking across all member states. It is particularly important because it covers areas such as data access, application programming interfaces, consumer protection, and liability.

How could stronger EU open banking standards affect businesses operating across Europe?

Stronger EU open banking standards would reduce the cost and complexity of building and maintaining cross-border payment integrations. More consistent rules on APIs, liability, and payment functionality would make it easier for businesses to scale across multiple EU markets and support new services such as variable recurring payments.

What role does Ireland play in shaping EU financial services policy?

Ireland plays a role in EU financial services policy through its regulatory framework and its position as a base for many global payment and fintech companies. It also participates in EU legislative processes via the Council of the European Union, including during its Presidency, when it chairs Council working groups and helps facilitate negotiations on legislation such as PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation.