What is a Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP)?

A PISP is a company that has registered with the relevant National Competent Authority (<a href="/glossarycollection/national-competent-authority" style="color:#48277C;" target="_blank" title="National Competent Authority"><u>NCA</u></a>) to provide payment initiation services using Open Banking. Open Banking payment initiation differs from traditional account based payments in that the money leaves the payers account in near real-time and is transmitted directly to the beneficiary (e.g. the merchant or service provider). The payment transaction is said to be irrevocable because once the payment initiation request has been authenticated by the payment account holder it is not possible to cancel the payment request.