The European Banking Authority (EBA) said information on "several thousand payment and electronic money institutions and 150,000 agents within the EU" is contained on the register, which brings together data collected by national regulators from across the trading bloc.
The register details the identity of authorised payment and electronic money institutions, including payment initiation service providers (PISPs) and account information service providers (AISPs), the date of their authorisation or registration, their place of establishment and the services they provide, as well as 'passporting' arrangements the businesses benefit from.
The EBA was obliged to establish the EU-wide register under the EU's second Payment Services Directive (PSD2).
Executive director of the EBA, Adam Farkas, said: "The EBA has worked hard to provide a freely accessible and reliable source of key information for market participants across the single market that will facilitate the roll out of PSD2, support the provision of the newly regulated payments services and improve transparency for consumers in the EU."
Under PSD2, AISPs and PISPs were given new rights to access payment accounts, like current accounts, and statement details, as well as other account information, held by banks and other account servicing payment service providers (ASPSPs) where customers consent to such access.
The detailed requirements on third party access are contained in regulatory technical standards on ‘strong customer authentication and common and secure open standards of communication’. ASPSPs must either enable third party access to the data through the customer's normal online banking websites, or alternatively develop a new 'dedicated interface' (API) for that purpose. Those requirements, though, do not apply until 14 September this year.
The EBA recently clarified the API testing requirements under PSD2.