The key to Open Finance: earning and leveraging Trust in an open world – Part II

Last week, we discussed the need for all companies to protect themselves from a growing number of sophisticated cyber attacks. Inevitably, this trend also impacts the financial services industry and by extension Open Finance. PSD2 was notably introduced to protect the European consumers and provide them with more innovative services. Today, let’s have a look at the internal security policy of Open Finance-oriented companies, that enable them to gain the trust of partners and consumers.

Trusted and compliant services to easily engage with providers and partners

At LUXHUB, as a regulated Support PFS and AISP/PISP, security plays a major role in product development, providers selection and daily operations in general. As explained by Vincent Bouckaert (Cybersecurity and SecDevOps Engineer, at LUXHUB), “the focus on security is very high: the PSD2 standards we implement already define a number of strong security measures; we need to make sure that those are implemented correctly, while also complying with local regulations and their derived requirements.”

When selling services destined to the financial services industry or companies that want to embed finance-like services within their own applications, security and therefore trust have become key differentiators.

In Luxembourg, companies providing solutions to the financial services industry need to be granted the “Support PFS” (Support Professionals of the Financial Sector) license. As described/defined by the CSSF, “one characteristic of Support PFS is that they do not as such exercise a financial activity themselves, but act as subcontractors of operational functions on behalf of other financial professionals”.

The regulator exercises its prudential supervision based on several instruments: mainly financial and ad hoc information, documents to be submitted in the context of the Risk Assessment Report (RAR) and the Descriptive Report (DR), introductory visits and on-site inspections. Engaging with a company that is CSSF-approved, or Support PFS labelled echoes with a high level of trust and security.

Discovering the new Marketplace: trust by design

With its Marketplace filled with innovative Fintechs products, LUXHUB has created a platform reserved to providers that are capable of completing high standards due diligence performed by the internal team at LUXHUB.

“By participating in this trusted ecosystem, fintechs are leveraging a platform which makes it easier for them to promote their innovations to potential partners and easily engage with them,” explains Jacques Pütz, CEO of LUXHUB.

In its Marketplace, LUXHUB utilizes a well-defined badge system, which represents different levels of trust, and therefore facilitates the potential choice of traditional and legacy players, while enabling more collaboration and engagement. The different plans are as follows:

• Start-up: giving the opportunity to innovative players to promote their services
• Business: reserved to companies capable of complying with high standards
• PRO (professional services): destined to companies working with LUXHUB or complying with the highest Luxembourg standards in terms of security, data privacy and compliance.

Expanding via a B2B marketplace and leveraging a platform such as LUXHUB’s, with deep roots in the banking industry, entails such actors to seize such opportunities and eventually grow.

With the growing number of players active in the financial services industry, LUXHUB, through its Marketplace, narrows down the choice and advocates the use of the services provided by its partners on a trusted platform. Filled with trusted solutions.

Situated at the intersection of collaboration and innovation, LUXHUB aims at acting as a facilitator of exchanges, with the overall mission of helping shape the financial services of the future, that will benefit the customers as well as the companies.

The world of Open Finance is filled by opportunities: LUXHUB, as a central and pioneering player built on PSD2 compliance, selects trusted solutions to ease the life of financial institutions

Jacques Pütz