As the European Commission moves closer towards its ambitions of creating a single European payments market, one proposal put forward in Article 58 of the upcoming Payment Services Directive (PSD2) could have a far-reaching effect on the way payments are transacted across the 28-member bloc. The article includes a provision to regulate third party (so-called “third party payment service providers”) access to payment account information, including the amount of funds in the account. The objective is to standardise and regulate access to financial information so that payment transactions can be made directly without passing through card schemes or other intermediate service providers. Large retailers may even consider becoming third party payment service providers themselves, allowing them to take payments directly from a customer’s bank account.