Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP)

A Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP) is a regulated third-party financial service provider that initiates a payment order from a customer's bank account on their behalf, without the PISP ever holding the customer's funds. Operating under the European Union's Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) and the Open Banking framework, PISPs offer a secure, direct, and often lower-cost alternative to traditional card-based payments by leveraging secure Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to connect directly with the payer's Account Servicing Payment Service Provider (ASPSP), typically a bank.