Il settore dei pagamenti tra vecchi e nuovi attori: profili concorrenziali

Abstract

The payment sector is undergoing a significant transformation driven by digital technology, leading to a decline in cash usage and the rise of various cashless payment methods. This shift has disrupted the historically concentrated and regulated banking market, traditionally characterized by bundled services, and introduced new business models and actors. New entrants include FinTechs and BigTechs, which operate on distinct paradigms compared to incumbent banks. FinTechs are typically agile and focus on specific services, often acting as intermediaries (e.g., P2P lending) without assuming loan risks. They benefit from digital technologies to efficiently screen borrowers and improve financial inclusion. While they challenge incumbents, they generally cooperate with banks and are not considered a systemic threat due to their limited customer base, reputational capital, and size. In contrast, BigTechs, with their immense scale, established customer ecosystems, vast data access, network effects, and cross-subsidization strategies, pose a more disruptive threat. Their entry into "bank-like" services, such as payments (e.g., Apple Pay, Alipay) and microcredit, is often instrumental to their core non-financial businesses, allowing them to offer services at near-zero marginal costs. This strategy, likened to a "cuckoo's nest," allows BigTechs to penetrate and potentially dominate segments of the banking sector, leading to competitive distortions like exclusionary practices and the formation of monopolies. Regulations like the Payment Services Directive (PSD2) aimed to foster competition and innovation by introducing new authorized operators (Payment Institutions, Third-Party Providers like PISPs and AISPs) and mandating data sharing. However, the interplay between PSD2 and GDPR has, at times, inadvertently favored BigTechs by granting them access to banks' customer data while allowing them to protect their own, creating an uneven playing field. Looking ahead, a complete transformation of banks into platform providers or BigTechs into full-fledged banks is unlikely. Instead, a "Banks As A Service" (BaaS) model is considered more probable, where existing platforms strengthen their role through ancillary services like payments. While this offers benefits like integrated customer experiences, it risks reducing traditional banks to subordinate roles as low-cost service providers within BigTechs' ecosystems, leading to margin erosion and potential financial instability. To mitigate these risks and establish a "level playing field," the text argues that traditional antitrust tools are insufficient due to the rapid pace of digital change and the unique characteristics of digital markets. A complementary regulatory approach is needed, exemplified by the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which imposes ex-ante obligations on designated "gatekeepers" to ensure fairness and contestability. The objective is not to protect incumbent banks but to address the systemic implications and competitive distortions, ensuring the principle of "same activity, same risks, same rules" is upheld in a market deemed systemic and involving general interests.