LeoVegas announced it is set to become the first gaming operator to offer open banking payment solutions for its customers. Starting in the UK, the Swedish sports betting and gaming operator will implement open banking through its proprietary technical platform across its major markets.

PSD2 and Open Banking

Under the Payment Services Directive (PSD2) (EU) 2015/2366) open banking allows the exchange of information among all actors to create opportunities for coupling of business models into a whole new ecosystem for payments which is expected to add value to the customers.

“Secure, seamless and fast payments are incredibly important, and the fact that we now – through PSD2 – have the opportunity to directly integrate with many European banks, will provide a superior customer experience offered by security and speed.”

Gustaf Hagman, CEO, LeoVegas Group

In its essence, there is a slight difference between open banking and the PSD2 which entered into force in 2018: the former is being called the UK version of the EU Directive as it requires banks to share their information in a standard format, while PSD2 does not hold such a requirement. Both deal with customer transaction history, though, the information that before the introduction of the open banking was available only for the banks would now be available to other authorized organizations.

UK Customers Already Have Open Banking

LeoVegas already launched open banking payment in the UK, pointing out customer data from the initial weeks since the introduction of the new payment opportunity showed that 10% of all new clients choose the open banking payment solution.

“Conducting transactions via open banking is also considerably more cost-effective compared with traditional payment methods. There is a high level of activity in our product and technology development organisation, and it is exciting to see all of the innovations we are delivering to our customers. We are first out in the industry with this pioneering payment solution, which will change the entire payments industry in the years ahead.”

Gustaf Hagman, CEO, LeoVegas Group

Open banking facilitates a higher degree of security and speed for payments and significantly reduces transaction fees and dependence on third party providers, and based on the interest among UK customers, LeoVegas is planning to successfully roll out the open banking payment solution across its core European markets.