However, this concern for customer rights came into being and developed in a context of maximum customer confidence towards banks and, most importantly, towards bank employees, which, in short, led to a high degree of customer loyalty to banks. During the 1990s and in the first half of the last decade such loyalty was negatively and slowly impacted by growing competition and the subsequent need to improve net interest margins. And the crisis unleashed as from 2007 saw the culmination of this deterioration and led to a significant loss of confidence by customers in banks, giving rise to a new scenario. Against this background of public mistrust in banks, and the weakening of the aforementioned degree of loyalty, the new technologies add additional challenges for the industry when it comes to tending to their relationship with customers. They alter consumer demands, with consumers now seeking flexible, immediate and personalised interaction anywhere and at any time. They also lower the entry barriers to the business, as the extensive networks of branches to capture and retain customers that characterised traditional banking no longer seem necessary. I consider that, as regards technological innovation, it is more fitting for the moment to talk about evolution rather than revolution, and that not all technological initiatives exert the same influence on banking business and nor do they necessarily constitute projects that enter into direct competition with banks. But there are indeed technological innovations that are acting as a catalyst for firms that may come to compete with banks in specific segments.
And one segment where this may have a greater impact, and specifically alter the bankcustomer relationship, is that of payment services. Bank customers and technology: the payment services segment. Allow me to illustrate the changes emerging in this segment with a brief reference to the new Directive on payment services, known as PSD2, as I previously mentioned. 4/8  One of the most notable aspects of this Directive is that it definitively institutionalises the activity of the so-called third-party service providers, or TPP. The Directive acknowledges the right of holders of a payment account to expressly authorise a third-party entity, provided it is duly authorised, to order payments on their behalf and/or to consult certain information associated with this account. In the first instance, we are talking about what are known as “payment initiation service providers”, while in the second case they are called “account information service providers”. The latter offer users the possibility of gaining consolidated knowledge of the situation of the payment accounts the users have with different entities, thereby helping them with their financial planning. Conversely, payment initiation services arise as an alternative to the use of cards, for the payment of purchases made in e-commerce environments. They are consequently characterised by providing payment beneficiaries with the security that payment has been initiated correctly, acting as a spur for expediting the delivery of the good or service.