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The Connector Podcast - DFS Digital Finance Summit - From Peppol To PSD3: How EU Payments Are Being Rebuilt
We map how Belgium’s e‑invoicing mandate and EU initiatives like VIDA, PSD3, and PSR are changing payments, and why compliance delivered via APIs is now a competitive product. We also unpack AI’s impact on onboarding, verification of payee (VoP), and the push for lower, more sovereign fees.
Join us for a podcast with Cedric, CEO of Digiteal.
• API-based payments, e‑invoicing, QR, and open banking
• Belgium’s Peppol mandate and fast adoption
• VIDA and the road to cross-border e‑reporting
• Compliance as a service under PSD2/PSD3 passporting
• Aera acquisition and retail card-present synergies
• Fintech for good through lower transaction fees
• AI-driven onboarding with authentic sources
• Verification of pay for IBAN-to-name matching
• Expansion across Europe using a repeatable playbook
• How to start with GTeal’s docs and APIs
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Koen Vanderhoydonk
koen.vanderhoydonk@jointheconnector.com
#FinTech #RegTech #Scaleup #WealthTech
Welcome to the Connector Podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs, banks, and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder Owen van der Hoydong as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the market.
SPEAKER_04:Welcome to another podcast from DFS Live and not really live but close. So I have with me Cedric from Digital. So Cedric, who are you and what does your company do?
SPEAKER_01:Hi, Kun. Glad to be here. So I'm uh the CEO of a company called GTeal, indeed. And uh GTA is a payment institution. We provide uh regulated payment services uh through APIs, and those services go from uh well payments on marketplaces, uh splitting, merging, uh QR codes, all of that, but also uh e-invoicing with uh all the heat that we're getting from Peppel and uh finally open banking uh to be able to have a full uh embedded uh finance solution.
SPEAKER_04:And it's not your first time that you're in this podcast. So if we look back to last time, what has drastically changed?
SPEAKER_01:Well, um the B2B mandate for uh e-invoicing that we were talking about last time now is in full effect. Uh and uh we have seen a massive adoption of uh companies that uh have registered on uh on Peppel. Uh I cannot, well, a day doesn't go through without me listening to uh the radio and uh all our competitors uh making their announcements about uh register to Peppel. You don't have just a few days left, uh all of that. So that has drastically changed. And uh for the rest, for the uh payment uh payment industry, what we are seeing is uh a lot of uh consolidation and uh actors taking space in the kind of sovereign EU payment solution. So uh Wero, uh My Bank, uh Open Banking, uh PSD2.3, PSR, all of that, uh, and of course the digital euro. So yeah, a lot of things are changing in the payment world.
SPEAKER_04:Although you're API-based most of the time, um, how do you actually strike the balance between all those um regulations that come out versus the solution that you provide to your customers?
SPEAKER_01:So um, as I said, we are a regulated payment uh institution, and so it means that we have a lot of rules to follow. Uh those rules come from the National Bank of Belgium, but the National Bank of Belgium is actually following the PSD-2 for the moment, uh soon-to-be PSD-3 regulation. So for us, what does it mean? It means that uh we have to, well, comply. And uh this compliance is actually the service that we're offering to our customers. They don't need to have all of those extra uh compliance burdens on themselves. We are taking care of that, and we are delivering it through the API. So that's uh that's really part of a part of the job. We are uh delivering the companies from the compliance that they otherwise uh would need to face uh directly.
SPEAKER_04:You earlier mentioned that uh there's a lot of promotion about your competitors on the radio here in Belgium, but can you clarify a little bit to the audience what is the initiative that's going on and why only in Belgium?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So um in February 2024, uh a law was passed in Belgium to mandate all VAT registered companies sending to other VAT registered companies in Belgium. Uh the mandate is that they need to send this through uh invoicing channels, so as structured e-invoices, whether through PAPL or if they have agreed on through what they call the second track, uh, which is basically EDI, uh, if the companies had pre-existing connectivity. Um and this was typically only for Belgium, because uh, well, uh, our parliament can only legislate for what's happening in Belgium, so it happens. Um makes sense. Yeah. Uh but uh we are in a much larger context. And uh with uh the European uh Vida initiative, so VAT in the digital age, we are actually seeing a convergence of all of uh the countries to go into what is called e-reporting. So if we look at the the grand scheme of things, this is the first step. Um and Belgium is in fact a front runner in this first step. I'll explain uh the the bigger picture. So we have this uh e-invoicing, so companies sending structured data between uh each other uh through uh a network with uh self-discovery, so all of that is uh great. Uh at least we think it's great. Uh some are complaining, but uh still uh it's I think a good improvement. Um this allows to have traceability, a standard on which to base uh all uh the checks. And uh we are now uh, as we are speaking today, above the 60% uh mark of companies that are registered in uh Belgium, hoping to reach 75% before the end of the year. So that alone is uh like 150,000 companies. And um that is Belgium, but later in 2028, still in Belgium, we will have e-reporting. And e-reporting is uh our dear friends from the Ministry of Finance looking over our shoulders and seeing all the invoices that are going through and seeing the VAT implications of those invoices. Um they're not doing this uh just because they can, they're doing it because there's actually a lot of VAT fraud that is happening, not only in Belgium, in the whole Europe. And that is actually what Vida is trying to solve. So by 2030, we should have an interoperable network of invoicing and any reporting that will allow cross-border invoices to be checked and like that avoid the VAT carousels that are in place. And so that's the grant scheme. Uh, how to get there. And everyone is looking at Belgium because we are, as I said, front runner in this. Uh not so wrong, because uh, but the guinea pigs are actually the companies in Belgium that uh need to go through these uh through these changes. Um, but it's still uh a great uh a great experience, I think, to have from Belgium for the companies in Belgium, because as we will have gone through this uh this initiative, it will be much easier to deploy that in the other countries. And for a company like uh GT, what does it mean? It means that we're following up who is going to be after Belgium using the same uh, I would say, uh, workbook, and um and we will be able to deploy the same solutions that we have deployed now in Belgium to those other countries.
SPEAKER_04:I also want to take out another myth because um it almost sounds that you're only active in Belgium. I don't think this is totally the case, right? You're you're active in the rest of Europe too. Can you explain a little bit what you do in the rest of Europe?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um GTL is active in 10 countries uh for the for the moment, and uh we have done this mostly through opportunities that uh well presented themselves. Uh Europe is for us a single market. And what I mean a single market, it's because uh, in their great wisdom, the PSD2 directive allowed for passporting. And that means that when you are able to deliver the service in one country with one regulator, in our case the National Bank of Belgium, you can passport this service and authorization in all the other countries. So without needing to uh establish offices in every uh other 26 members of the of Europe, we can deliver our services exactly the same way that we're doing from Belgium. And that is the case for payment and for Papel, it's actually even better because there the service is worldwide. So we can deliver that uh wherever we want around the world.
SPEAKER_04:Wow, so the future looks very bright for you guys.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Uh there will be a lot of opportunities, and as you know, Belgium is a small country in Europe. So while we deploy the e-invoicing and payment solutions in Belgium, we're actually looking at a much larger market outside of Belgium, and so yes, a lot of opportunities and a lot of uh work for us in the coming years.
SPEAKER_04:That's good news. Um, because we heard the at DFS we had a very strong focus on fintech for good, and I kind of want like to reflect uh on that versus your business. What would be your comment?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um we believe that uh we should be doing good in every way we can, but it starts not from uh I would say uh a greenwashing perspective, but more of a just attitude of everyday. Uh so that's that's our that's our position. We uh we are in a company that uh the teal in GTA is for teal management, so we uh advocate for trust, transparency, and in general, try to leave the world in a better shape than we found it uh as we as we came. So uh that's really our uh what we strive for. Um and so fintech for good for us at the beginning meant get rid of paper. Well, paper is an ecological nightmare, uh, all the paper invoices that we were using at the time. Yeah, yeah. Um and so uh so that was the the idea at the beginning. Today, uh the good that we want to do, in fact, is is a bit different. We are now owned by merchants. So uh GTL is owned by a company called Aera in Norway, and Aera itself is owned by the biggest retailers. And the retailers they want lower transaction fees. And well, you're gonna tell me, what does that have to do with good? Um well, we end up as consumers paying those transaction fees uh through the groceries that we are shopping uh at uh in the retailers. So for me, having uh doing good means trying to strive for lower fees in the transactions, a more European sovereignty uh system so that we can not uh pay uh American taxes on our payments. And uh that's really what we're looking at looking at delivering.
SPEAKER_04:Well, thank you very much. You mentioned about uh the new partnership. The um can you tell us a little bit more about that?
SPEAKER_01:With uh AERA?
SPEAKER_04:Yes, please.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So GT was acquired by Aera in 2024, and uh Ayra's focus has been on the terminals that you find in the shops. So when you're doing your grocery shopping, you buy a few things, you go to the uh end of the store, and you go in a lane, and at the end of the lane, you're going to pay. Paying on a terminal, so we call those card-present transactions. They're specialist in this, and so great experience doing that for very big retailers, so a lot of volume going uh being processed. We're talking about uh a billion transactions uh a year, so really aggressive. Yeah. Um and we come from e-commerce. So DGTL is uh started as a company providing, as you said, uh, payment buttons, QR codes, uh to enable payment of uh invoices, but also uh for anything you could buy online. So we come from the e-com word, and e-com is card not present. We started from Belgium, they started from Norway, and together we want to conquer Europe for everything related to payments card present and card not present. So you see, there's a lot of synergies in what we're doing.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:And uh that's uh really the the strength of this uh this collaboration. Uh we've been merged into uh IRA, but we still are distinctive companies with a distinctive focus, but trying together to provide better payment services throughout Europe.
SPEAKER_04:Makes a lot of sense. Um, since we're moving towards the end of the uh conversation here, I always want to have that little bit of touch around artificial intelligence. I mean, it's a question that I need to ask almost. So, how is how are how is your company actually dealing with AI?
SPEAKER_01:It's uh usual question, but uh very interesting still. Um in fact, AI is changing the world. Um, and what we thought or took for granted before isn't granted anymore. I'll I'll explain it how it changes our business. Um you know that as a regulated payment institution, we need to make sure to whom we're delivering the payment services. We need to know where the money is going. We cannot allow money laundering, uh financing uh terrorism, uh, fraud, all of that. The way we were doing this is by collecting documents. So give me a uh copy of your ID, copy of your bylaws, a copy of your uh, I don't know, uh, an invoice from your uh water distribution to show where your what is your actual address, all of those. Those are documents. And today with AI, documents cannot be trusted anymore. So this changes a lot the way we are uh processing uh the onboardings of our customers. We now need more and more to rely on the authentic source and to check not from a document, but really from the authority that was able to deliver you.
SPEAKER_04:Almost double double checking?
SPEAKER_01:Well, no. Uh we try to go directly to the authentic source so we don't have to ask the customer for the document because we know that we will not be able to trust the document anyway, so why even ask for it?
SPEAKER_04:Fair point.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So that is uh that is a big uh change in in our business, and as every change, it brings new opportunities. One opportunity is well, through this connectivity with the authentic source, we have a lighter onboarding. We ask more less things to the customers, so that's better for them. It's easier for us. So you ask less, but you know more. Yes, and we trust more because it comes from the authentic source. So that's one part. But the other part is it's actually also a new business for us, uh, in the sense that uh we are now providers of a VOP service, so verification of PE. And that is exactly uh in the line of okay, get the data from the actual source. So I'll explain a bit. When you uh provide a mandate for your telco company, you're going to say, okay, this is me, uh Cedric, this is my IBAN. And uh it better be my IBAN because if I would put your IBAN on that uh mandate, you will start paying for my electricity. I might like it, but you might not. Um, and the company that is providing the electricity will have quite a few problems if they try to collect from your account for my electricity. How can they check that it's from my account? Well, they can have a document, uh RIB, like they say in France, or uh a copy of uh a bank card. But all of those are documents that can be forged very easily. So how can they do? Well, access the authentic source. And what is the authentic source of your bank account? It's your bank. And how can you do that? Through a verification of pay request. So you're going to actually call a service on our side, again, through an API, to know, okay, this is the IBAN. This is it should belong to Cedric, but is it really Cedric's IBAN? And the answer will be yes, no, maybe. And like that, you will know. And you didn't ask any document, you just asked the bank.
SPEAKER_04:So in this podcast, we touched upon a lot of stuff all around payments, APIs. I heard invoicing, I heard card not present, card present, and I hear verification of pay. These are all things that you obviously want to be contacted for. So how do they do that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So the best way to start is really from our website, uh www.gtl.eu, EU for the European reach. Absolutely. And uh from there you'll be able to have a presentation of all those uh services. You'll also be able to see the documentation of all those APIs, because that's our best ambassador. Uh, if the documentation is clear, it should be easy for you to use. Uh so don't hesitate for your tech teams to look into it and to uh contact us whenever they are ready to uh start using those uh those APIs. Uh all the contact information is from the website. Uh I can also be uh contacted uh if you want, but it will be much uh better through the sales.
SPEAKER_04:Through API then, Cedric.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Cedric uh Cedric's API.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. Thank you very much for your contribution today. Thank you also to the listeners, and stay tuned for more fintech news on this channel. Thank you very much. Thank you, Kun.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for listening to another episode of the Connector Podcast. To connect and keep up to date with all the latest, head over to www.jointheconnector.com or hit subscribe via your podcast streaming platform.