Glossary
Payment institution (PI)
An EU/EEA authorisation to execute payments (transfers, acquiring, remittance) without issuing e-money or taking deposits.
A payment institution moves money but does not hold stored value the way an EMI does. Acquirers, payout providers, remittance firms and open-banking payment initiators typically hold PI licences; AIS-only firms register as AISPs.
Like EMIs, PIs passport - and like EMIs, the licence tells you what the firm MAY do, not how good it is. Verification is the second step.
Primary source: Directive (EU) 2015/2366 (PSD2)
In the verified data
- The EBA register lists 1,015 payment institutions in the EEA (as of 2026-09-18) - the largest licence class by far - concentrated in the Netherlands (93), France (91), Germany (82), Spain (79).
- It is also the most domestic class: 46% of payment institutions are not passported beyond their home state, while 24% cover all 30.
- A further 129 firms are registered only for account information (AISPs) - a lighter regime that asks for professional indemnity insurance instead of initial capital. In this catalogue, 36 of the 38 live open-banking providers operate on a payment-institution licence.
Recomputed from the catalogue and the official EBA, ESMA and FCA registers on every build — how we verify.
Questions to ask a provider
- Which payment services, by PSD2 number, does your authorisation cover?
- Is your authorisation a full licence or a small-institution exemption, and which states have you passported into?
- How are customer funds held between receipt and settlement?