Financial intermediaries are interested in developing open banking interfaces for thirdparty access to payment accounts, as laid down in the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), and this is gradually fostering market competition, also thanks to new entrants.
Although prospectuses for GSE debt are required by law to say that such instruments are not backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, investors have concluded that the government will not allow GSEs to default, and as a consequence offer to purchase GSE debt at substantially lower interest rates than required of comparably situated financial institutions without such direct ties to government.2 Given this advantage, which private competitors are not able to fully overcome, the housing-related GSEs have grown rapidly in recent years.