On 12 February 2026, the European Banking Authority (EBA) issued an opinion advising Member State competent authorities (NCAs) under the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) on how to proceed once the transition period that is set in the EBA’s No-Action letter of 10 June 2025 comes to an end on 2 March 2026.
Background
On 10 June 2025, the EBA issued a No-Action letter in the form of an Opinion, in which it provided advice to NCAs designated as competent under the PSD2 on the interplay between the PSD2 and the Regulation on markets in crypto-assets (MiCA) with regard to the authorisation and supervision of crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) that carry out transactions using electronic money tokens (EMTs).
Since the publication of the No-Action letter more than 100 CASPs have approached NCAs informally or have submitted an application for authorisation as payment service providers (PSPs). Given that the transition period in the No-Action letter is limited to nine months (to minimise the time during which unauthorised entities could provide payment services in the EU) the EBA is issuing this latest Opinion to advise NCAs how to prioritise their authorisation efforts when the transition period ends on 2 March 2026.
Scenarios
The Opinion describes three scenarios which may arise for a given CASP under MiCA (or for the purpose of the Opinion: an entity that benefits from one of the national transitional regimes to which MiCA refers) that intends to continue carrying out EMT transactions that qualify as a payment service.
One scenario is where the CASP has successfully obtained an authorisation as a payment institution/electronic money institution or has partnered with a PSP authorised to provide the respective services, in which case the CASP is allowed to continue carrying out EMT transactions in a way commensurate with its PSP authorisation (or, respectively, the authorisation of the partner PSP). The Opinion states that in order to meet the PSD2 requirements, a CASP would need either to obtain authorisation to provide payment services itself, or for example to act as an agent of a PSP that is authorised to provide the respective payment services. In the latter case, NCAs are advised to assess whether the partner PSP requires authorisation under Article 59 of MiCA.
The Opinion also adds that, when assessing whether CASPs require authorisation under PSD2, NCAs are reminded that the execution of transfers involving EMTs may qualify as a payment service (for example payment service 3 of Annex I to PSD2 (execution of payment transactions)), regardless of whether the custodial wallets offered by the CASP qualify as payment accounts.