How Open Banking and EU Rules Made Bank Transfers as Fast as Crypto in 2026
In 2026, the gap between bank money and cryptocurrency settlement has narrowed dramatically in the euro area. A transfer between two Finnish bank accounts now lands with the recipient in about ten seconds, weekends and holidays included, at no extra cost — a speed that was once the exclusive selling point of blockchain rails. The change is the result of two converging forces: open banking infrastructure and the EU’s Instant Payments Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/886), which made instant euro transfers mandatory for receiving since January 2025 and for sending since October 2025.
Open banking: from closed silos to account-to-account rails
Before PSD2, the EU’s Second Payment Services Directive, a bank was a closed system. No third party could initiate a payment from a customer’s account. PSD2 created a licensed role — the payment initiation service provider (PISP) — that can trigger a transfer directly from a bank account once the user approves it inside their own banking app. Finnish banks, including OP, Nordea, S-Pankki, and Danske, exposed standardized APIs to make this possible.
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The practical effect is that a business can ask a customer to log into their bank and confirm a transfer rather than hand over a card. The payment carries verified identity from the bank, settles on real-time rails, and stores no card credentials on the merchant side. That reduces both fraud exposure and card-processing costs. Nordic fintechs such as Zimpler and Brite built entire businesses on this model, and it is now the default checkout for a large share of Finnish e-commerce rather than a niche option.
Regulation made instant transfers the default
Open banking made account-to-account payments possible; regulation made them universal. The Instant Payments Regulation requires euro-area payment providers to offer instant credit transfers at no premium over standard transfers. From October 2025, providers must also offer a free Verification of Payee check, matching the payee name to the IBAN before confirmation — a step that heads off both typos and a common class of payment fraud.
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Because Finland sits in the euro area, none of this is a future promise. A transfer between two Finnish accounts is now expected to make funds available within seconds, around the clock. That is bank money behaving like a wallet, and it removes the single biggest gap that used to separate a bank app from an on-chain send.
Crypto firms are crossing onto bank rails
The convergence runs in both directions. As crypto matured under MiCA, the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework, exchanges began acquiring the same payment permissions banks hold. OKX is a clear example: alongside its MiCA authorization, it secured a Payment Institution licence in Malta, passported across the EEA, to run stablecoin payment products such as OKX Pay and its card under both MiCA and PSD2, as Coinpedia reported.
That licence is not a formality. Under the updated rulebook, a stablecoin used to pay is treated as electronic money, so a firm offering stablecoin payments needs a payment or e-money licence on top of MiCA. The result is that crypto rails are being pulled under the very framework that governs ordinary bank transfers, and a user can increasingly spend a regulated stablecoin the way they would tap a debit card.
Verified identity is the real dividing line
If account-to-account and on-chain transfers can feel equally fast, they still place trust differently. A bank transfer arrives with a customer the bank has already identified. Strong customer authentication under PSD2 means the payment is approved with two independent factors inside the banking app, and that verified identity travels with the money. An on-chain transfer, by contrast, arrives with only an address, so any regulated business still has to run its own identity and anti-money-laundering checks before it pays anything out.
The Finnish regulator sets out the strong customer authentication rules that make the bank login itself a compliance step, which is why a “registration-free” checkout is a claim about user experience rather than about anonymity. The direction of travel is that both rails — bank and crypto — increasingly answer to the same identity and AML expectations.
What to watch next
The next moves are already drafted, from the EU’s PSD3 and Payment Services Regulation proposals to the continued build-out of MiCA. For the person tapping a phone, the visible result is the same regardless of where the money starts: value that settles in seconds with identity built in, whether it leaves a bank app or a crypto wallet. The rails a Finnish user meets today — fast, verified, and account-to-account — are the clearest measure of how far ordinary money has moved toward what crypto promised first.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency and digital asset markets are volatile and uncertain; readers should conduct their own research and consult a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions.
