Standard specifications and assets

PSD2 XS2A set the regulatory benchmark for consent-driven data access and for enabling third parties to trigger payments. One of the main intentions of PSD2 was to foster innovation and competition in the European banking market. While this was a relevant first step, it was broadly acknowledged that more is needed to fully achieve this objective.

PSD2 ensures access to datasets on a bank customer’s payment account. Further, the defined roles for payment initiation and account information allow to provide basic payment services. Compared to other payment means, these will not allow the full innovation potential to be unleashed. This is why openFinance was established: openFinance services will cover broader data sources and additional account types than required under PSD2.

The openFinance Taskforce represents the market supply side (i.e. banks, central banks, payment/banking associations, payment schemes and interbank processors operating in SEPA) as providers of the openFinance APIs. The openFinance Taskforce is supported by the API Experts Working Group, a Business Evaluation Working Group and a Market Communications Working Group. The full list of participants is available here.

The openFinance Framework is built on different artefacts, which are all published for free under Creative Commons (CC-BY-ND):​

• Operational Rules documents that cover the service description, abstract (logical) data model and detailed process flow descriptions in a B2B interface;
• Implementation Guidelines that specify the service interfaces in technical detail, including XML/JSON schemas;
• OpenAPI files help implementers during development; technical errata may still be published.

You can download all openFinance documents here.

The openFinance API Framework offers a modern, open, harmonised and interoperable set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) as the safest and most efficient way to provide data securely, enabling European banking customers to benefit from innovative products and services (‘Banking as a Service’), by granting TPPs safe and secure (authenticated and authorised) access to their bank accounts and financial data.

• Modern “RESTful” API set using HTTP/1.1 with TLS 1.2 (or higher) as transport protocol
• TPP identification by ETSI-defined eIDAS certificates: QWACS mandated (easy measure to protect e.g. against DDOS attacks), QSEALS optional for banks (TPP follows instruction by bank)
• Building on all NextGenPSD2 AIS and PIS use cases
• TPP access beyond PSD2
• GDPR compliant consent model beyond PSD2
• Support of Direct Access for PSUs / Corporates
• Support for eCommerce and other channels
• Discovery service to obtain the specific implementation details
• Multilevel SCA/Corporate Banking support

openFinance services are defined in the annual Workplan. Check on top of the current page for the actual Workplan and actual services being developed.

Berlin Group openFinance is interested in further engaging with market participants to involve broader market interests as well. To this end, the openFinance Advisory Group & Board has been established as a forum for the users of the standards.

The openFinance Advisory Group & Board offers participants the opportunity to liaise, interact and engage in a 2-way dialogue on strategic, business and technical topics related to the use and evolution of the openFinance standards, ensuring up-to-date information on all openFinance activities and future specification development from inception.

The openFinance Advisory Group & Board offers every opportunity to discuss and provide input into the openFinance standards development process. As such, it provides a Forum for debate, helps foster adoption of openFinance, removes barriers, identifies optimisation opportunities, ensures openFinance is usable for implementers, and contributes to pan-European harmonisation with improved interoperability across the entire value chain. The openFinance Advisory Group & Board operates with a solution-oriented approach.

Download: Terms of Reference of the openFinance Advisory Group & Board

As users of the standards, the openFinance Advisory Group & Board represents the market demand side (i.e. regulated Third Party Providers, FinTechs / IT Solution Providers, Merchants / Retailers / Corporates / SMEs, Consumers, Consultancies and Industry Associations).

The current openFinance Advisory Board and Co-Chairs have been elected and confirmed with their term ending on 31 December 2027.

Elected Co-Chairs:

• Ralf Ohlhausen (ETPPA)
• Steffen Weiß (Be | Shaping the Future Germany)

The openFinance Advisory Board consists of a maximum of 20 members, including the Co-Chairs, representing the openFinance Advisory Group stakeholder groups. The stakeholder groups and elected members are as follows:

• Market demand-side:
  • Registered TPPs: Fanny Rodriguez (Fintecture), Ralf Ohlhausen (ETPPA), Gideon Fourie (Token.io)
  • FinTechs/IT Solution Providers: Batuhan Bekir Gültekin (Qwist), Kannan Rasappan (Banfico)
  • Merchants/Retailers/Corporates/SMEs: vacant seat
  • Consumer organisations: vacant seat
  • Industry Associations/Consultancies: Steffen Weiß (Be | Shaping the Future Germany)
• Market supply-side Observers:
  • 3 members, designated by the openFinance Taskforce: Varying composition
  • Regulatory Observers – 3 (1 from the European Banking Authority, 1 from the European Central Bank, 1 from the European Commission), designated by their corresponding organisations: vacant seats

The full list of participants is available here.

Participants of the openFinance Taskforce represent the market supply side (i.e. banks, central banks, payment/banking associations, payment schemes and interbank processors operating in SEPA), providing the openFinance APIs.

If your organisation is operating on the market supply-side and is interested in participating to the openFinance Taskforce, then please send a message to info@berlin-group.org.

For participation in the openFinance Taskforce, it is not required to be a Berlin Group member: the openFinance Taskforce is open for participation to any interested and committed non-Berlin Group participant as well, because the scope of the openFinance topic might be interesting to work on also for other market supply-side participants, not necessarily only Berlin Group members. For participants to the openFinance Taskforce, there are no further Terms of Reference restrictions or applicable fees. The only commitment asked of participants is to participate as actively as possible on a best-effort basis, which allows them to influence the process and results and be informed firsthand. Participants are engaged on a voluntary basis and carry their own costs.

Because transparency to the market is a key guiding principle for an open standardisation initiative such as the Berlin Group, the website always shows the organisations that have joined the openFinance Taskforce: an updated participant list will be published each time a new participant joins. The participant list includes the organisation name and logo of each participant. The application becomes final only once the organisation has received the logo in a web-ready version (.PNG or .JPG file, 72 dpi) and a print-ready version (.EPS, .AI, or .PDF file, 300 dpi).

Participants of the openFinance Advisory Group & Board represent the market demand side (i.e. as a Registered Third Party Provider, a FinTech/IT Solution Provider, a Merchant/Retailer/Corporate/SME, a Consumer Organisation, or an Industry Association/Consultancy), consuming the openFinance APIs.

If your organisation is operating on the market demand side and is interested in participating in the openFinance Advisory Group & Board, then please send a message to advisory@berlin-group.org (please mark a permanent exception for ‘advisory@berlin-group.org’ and ‘advisory@open-finance-api.org’ in your SPAM filters in order to ensure proper reception of messages).

The openFinance Advisory Group & Board is open to participation by any interested and committed market demand-side participant. The composition of the openFinance Advisory Group & Board needs to be balanced amongst the different stakeholders in order to ensure

• balanced and fair market representation without exclusive domination or guidance in standards development
• due decision-making in broad consensus with equity and fairness among participants

For participants in the openFinance Advisory Group & Board, there are no applicable fees. The only commitment asked of participants is to participate as actively as possible on a best-effort basis, which allows them to influence the process and results and be informed firsthand. Participants are engaged on a voluntary basis and carry their own costs.

As transparency to the market is a key guiding principle for an open standardisation initiative such as the Berlin Group, the website always shows the organisations that have joined as participants to the openFinance Advisory Group & Board: an updated participant list will be published each time when a new participant joins. The participant list mentions the organisation name and logo of the participants. The application as a participant only becomes final once the organisation logo has been received in a web-ready version (.PNG or .JPG file, 72 dpi) and a print-ready version (.EPS, .AI or .PDF file, 300 dpi).

• On 12 January 2026 the Berlin Group published the openFinance Workplan 2026-2027.
• On 6 June 2025 the Berlin Group published updated VoP specifications and related documents.
• On 17 April 2025 the Berlin Group opened new Public Market Consultations on Digital Cheques and Direct Access for Corporates.
• On 14 April 2025 the Berlin Group moved the OpenAPI (YAML) files to GitLab.
• On 27 January 2025 the Berlin Group published the openFinance Workplan 2025.
• On 18 December 2024 the Berlin Group published a new Document Services API and an updated Data Dictionary.
• On 22 October 2024 the Berlin Group published a new Mandate Services API.
• On 5 August 2024 the Berlin Group opened a public market consultation on a new Mandate Services API and on a new Verification of Payee/Party (VOP) API Service.
• On 1 March 2024 the Berlin Group published the Extended Account Information Services for the openFinance API Framework Version 2.
• On 21 February 2024 the Berlin Group published the Administrative Services for the openFinance API Framework Version 2.
• On 16 February 2024 the Berlin Group published the V2 Discovery API.
• On 13 February 2024 the Berlin Group published the V2 Push Account Information Service.
• On 6 February 2024 the Berlin Group published the openFinance Workplan 2024.
• On 7 November 2023 the Berlin Group published the additional V2 Premium (Extended) Payments: Multiple Recurring Payments, Reservation of Funds and Deferred Payments
• On 20 October 2023 the Berlin Group published the Request to Pay Version 2 services, one of the first Version 2 Premium Payment Services!
• On 12 October 2023 the Berlin Group published the Version 2 Core PSD2 Compliance services. This milestone marks an important beginning of the Version 2 Architecture, which is built for the future of Open Finance and Open Data. Towards the end of 2023 the remaining (sometimes updated from V1) V2 services documentation will be finalised and published.
• On 7 July 2023 the Berlin Group opened a public market consultation on Request-to-Pay V2. RTP V2 supports document transport (e.g. for eInvoicing) and includes an optional explicit consent confirmation step for the consent mechanism between RTP-Sender/Originator-RTPSP and PSU and thus supports enhanced onboarding procedures on the client side.
• On 7 July 2023 the Berlin Group published an update version 1.2 of the AIS Savings and Loans Account Implementation Guidelines. This value-added extension update covers editorial improvements and integrates the ability to compare and differentiate between interest’s rates (or array of interest rates) and the interest and amount of arrears in loans.
• On 23 & 24 May 2023 the Berlin Group held its Open Finance Conference 2023. At the event Berlin Group announced that its PSD2 Open Banking standards already support new Open Finance schemes (e.g. EPC SPAA and giroAPI), and that additional leverage and support is offered to new payment schemes currently being defined, of which some aim to contribute to European sovereignty and autonomy (e.g. EUDI Wallet, Digital Euro). A press release was published immediately after the conference. The full text of the press release can be found here.
• On 7 April 2023 Berlin Group openFinance opened a public market consultation on the openFinance API V2 Compliance Services.
• On 3 March 2023 Berlin Group openFinance published the Workplan 2023.
• On 16 November 2022 Berlin Group openFinance published a version 1.0 of the AIS for Securities Service and a version 1.0 of the Transaction Data Model for the V2.x Services.
• On 1 July 2022 Berlin Group openFinance published a new subrelease 1.3.12 of the NextGenPSD2 Framework Implementation Guidelines, integrating Errata on version 1.3.11 and adding several new features following change requests from market participants and recent EBA clarifications. This document was published together with a Change Log document. On the same day two public market consultations were started: one on AIS for Securities and one on a new Transactions Data Model.
• On 29 April 2022 Berlin Group openFinance published the Operational Rules and the Implementation Guidelines for the Extended Payment Initiation Services
• On 3 March 2022 Berlin Group openFinance published updated versions of the Operational Rules and the Implementation Guidelines for the Push Account Information Services.
• On 4 February 2022 Berlin Group openFinance opened a public market consultation on the Operational Rules for the Document Services.
• On 19 January 2022 Berlin Group openFinance opened a public market consultation on the Implementation Guidelines for the Extended Payment Initiation Services.
• On 21 December 2021, Berlin Group openFinance published the Push Account Information Services.
• On 20 December 2021, Berlin Group openFinance published the openFinance Workplan 2022.
• On 11 October 2021, Berlin Group openFinance started a public market consultation on the detailed technical specification for additional Push Account Information Services.
• On 24 September 2021, Berlin Group openFinance published the first openFinance Services which integrated the feedback from the preceding public market consultation.
• On 14 June 2021, Berlin Group openFinance published 3 additional documents for public market consultation. The market consultation on these documents closes on 26 July 2021 COB.
• On 7 June 2021 the public market consultation for the openFinance Administrative Services has started. The market consultation closes on 26 July 2021 COB.
• On 27 May 2021 the public market consultation for the new scheme-neutral Request to Pay Service has started. The market consultation closes on 9 July 2021 COB. In addition, the consolidated results on the March/April 2021 market consultation on the new openFinance Push Account Information Services (PAIS) and Extended Payment Initiation Services (EPIS) have been published.
• On 19 April 2021 the AIS for Savings and Loans Accounts extension has been published. Although this has been published as an extension to the core NextGenPSD2 Framework, the Open Finance character of this service makes it especially also interesting for the openFinance community.
• On 19 April 2021 the public market consultation for the new openFinance Pay by Loan Service has started. The market consultation closes on 28 May 2021 COB.
• On 29 March 2021, the Berlin Group has published a first version of the openFinance Certification Process document, as a proposal to be further discussed with openFinance API Access Schemes when they want to consider their role in Certification and Approval. The certification process described in this paper should ensure a high quality of openFinance implementations and describes a possible certification and approval ecosystem model for the Berlin Group openFinance API Framework describing in detail the overall process for all involved roles, a detailed description of the main involved documents and a detailed description of the main processes
• On 8 March 2021 the public market consultation for the new openFinance Push Account Information and Extended Payment Initiation Services has started. The market consultation closes on 16 April 2021 COB.
• On 1 March 2021 the NextGenPSD2 Advisory Group & Board formally migrated to an openFinance Advisory Group & Board.
• On 30 November 2020 the Berlin Group published the openFinance Workplan 2021.
• On 26 October 2020 the Berlin Group published a news announcement with press release on the start of the openFinance activities.

You can download all openFinance API Framework documents here.