fire.com authorised for new payment services

fire.com has today announced that it has been authorised to provide new payment services that will change the way businesses and people pay and get paid.

Earlier this year, the second payment services directive (PSD2) was implemented across Europe. The concept was designed to bring more innovation and competition to the payments market while enhancing standardisation and security for consumers. Central to the legislation was the definition and introduction of new regulated parties called Payment Initiation and Account Information service providers. fire.com has become the first Irish based payments firm to be authorised as a Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP).

Colm Lyon, founder and CEO at fire.com explained “For some time, the idea of being able to easily pay funds directly from an account to another person or business has been discussed, also some people don’t want to share their account or card details to make a payment. That is what being a PISP is all about. This enables numerous different scenarios – charities can display QR codes on social media, which can be scanned so potential donors are directed to their bank to authorise and approve the payment. Businesses can sell online; when someone checks out, they are directed to their bank to authorise the payment – straight from their account to the online retailer. Utility billers can add ‘pay from your account’ links to emails, enabling people to click and pay from their accounts without using a card or sharing any details. It opens up so many ways for payments to change.”

For the ecosystem to work, all account providers (typically banks) are working to open-up access to their accounts for authorised third parties (such as fire.com). Lyon believes this will now accelerate. “The legalisation took effect earlier this year and we expect banks to open up access via agreed standards over the next few months – indeed many already have done so.” Once that occurs fire.com is in position to help its customers change the way they get paid.

About Fire

fire.com provides business and personal customers with digital accounts and debit cards. The accounts are opened online and via their mobile apps. Customers can open multiple accounts in both sterling and euro, enabling bank transfers to and from any bank account in the UK or Eurozone. fire.com also provides Mastercard® debit cards to both its business and personal customers. For easy reconciliation and automation of payments, businesses can integrate their systems to fire.com via an application programming interface (API).