What are Payment Initiation Services?

Payment Initiation Services are services that initiate a payment order on a payment account that is held at another ASPSP.

For example, say you hold an account with a bank; PIS enables you to instruct a Payment Initiation Service Provider to initiate payment directly from your bank account to a payee account, such as an online shopping website.

The advantage of such an arrangement is that PIS enables customers to make payments online without the need for credit or debit card details. Since payments are typically account-to-account transfers between the payer and payee, PIS offers a direct alternative to card-based payments such as Visa or Mastercard transactions to paying for goods online. And by cutting out the middleman, PIS delivers payments that are faster, cheaper and more secure than traditional methods of payment.