PSD3/PSR: The Countdown Toward Implementation Has Started

The European Parliament and the Council reached a provisional political agreement on the new Payment Services Regulation (PSR) and the third Payment Services Directive (PSD3) on 27 November 2025, with the file now officially classified as "Close to adoption." Legal advisories have since reported that the Council's COREPER endorsed the compromise texts in late April 2026, with a Parliament committee vote following in early May and a plenary vote expected shortly after, though final adoption and Official Journal publication are not yet confirmed on the Parliament's own tracker.

Verification of Payee Becomes Universal

Under the agreed text, PSPs will have a duty to check that a payee's name and unique identifier match, and to refuse the payment order and inform the payer in cases of discrepancy. PSPs will also be responsible for strong customer authentication, conducting a risk assessment, and offering spending limits and blocking measures to reduce the risk of fraud.

This extends an obligation that euro-area firms are already familiar with under the Instant Payments Regulation, but applies it across all credit transfers a meaningfully larger scope for screening and matching infrastructure.

Fraud Liability Is Being Reframed as a Shared Responsibility

A PSP will be liable for covering customers' losses if it fails to implement appropriate fraud prevention mechanisms. Where a customer reports impersonation fraud, a scammer posing as a PSP employee, to both the police and the PSP, the PSP is expected to refund the full amount.

Importantly, the obligation does not stop at the PSP. If fraudulent content is disseminated through online platforms and those platforms fail to remove it after being notified, the platforms become liable to PSPs that have reimbursed defrauded customers, and advertisers of financial services must prove to large online platforms and search engines that they are legally permitted to offer those services.

For payment institutions, this is best read as a redistribution of fraud-prevention responsibility across the ecosystem, PSPs, platforms, and advertisers all carry a defined role, rather than a liability shift onto PSPs alone.

What Else Changes for Customers and Institutions

Customers will gain the right to access human customer support rather than only chatbots, and must be informed of all charges, including currency conversion fees and ATM withdrawal charges, before a payment is initiated. Public resources will also be directed toward educating people on how to avoid fraud.

The regulation will apply to credit institutions with EU branches, post office institutions entitled under national law to provide payment services, all payment institutions, and the ECB, national central banks, and regional and local authorities when not acting in a public capacity.

What Happens Next

The deal still needs to be formally adopted by Parliament and Council before it enters into force. Once that happens, firms will be working against a multi-stage transition period, reported by legal advisories to run between 18 and 24 months depending on the specific obligation, rather than a single deadline.

The Conversation at the Forum

The PSD3/PSR session on 15 October will unpack what these obligations mean in practice, for Verification of Payee infrastructure, fraud liability allocation, and the readiness work that compliance, fraud, and product teams need to prioritise now that the text is settled.

Join us at the NextGen Payments & RegTech Forum, 15 October 2026, Athens Marriott Hotel, Athens, Greece.

Request the full agenda or secure your place →

For sponsorship or registration enquiries, contact info@qubevents.com

By: Zinah Abdaki, CMO at QUBE Events

Sources: European Parliament Legislative Train Schedule - Payment Services Regulation, last updated 20 February 2026 · Freshfields, May 2026 · Norton Rose Fulbright, March 2026 · Crassula, April 2026