A May forecast for summer publication has come and gone. The official record now points to December, and carries a status line that reads backwards until you know the procedure.
The PSD3 and PSR timetable has moved, but many summaries have not. The April 2026 compromise texts change the planning assumptions and contain two easily missed provisions that apply from entry into force.
One in five biometric fraud attempts now involves a deepfake. The figure is striking on its own, but the more interesting story sits underneath it: inherence has quietly become the awkward leg of the SCA stool, and the trilogue text of the PSR is the first regulatory instrument to acknowledge it.
PSD3 and the PSR have cleared trilogue. Coreper has the final texts. None of that tells you when the rules will apply to your business. A primer on the four-level framework that determines when EU payments regulation lands.
Twenty-five years ago, the payments industry solved the trust problem of e-commerce with a three-domain architecture that became the backbone of online authentication. Now, as AI agents prepare to shop on our behalf, we're witnessing history rhyme. But this time, humans might not be in the loop.
Politicians love declaring victory. A new law passes, the metrics move in the right direction, and success is proclaimed. But in complex systems, the first metric to move is rarely the one that matters most.
