Open Banking in Malta: A Guide for 2025

Malta is rapidly transforming into a digital finance hub, with mobile banking surging and fintech innovation accelerating. Yet, open banking itself remains in the early stages, largely familiar to banks and consumers, but still navigating its path into mainstream merchant adoption. As local appetite grows for faster payments and richer data, now is the time for Maltese e‑commerce businesses selling to customers in Europe to get ahead, ideally with flexible solutions like Noda.

What Is Open Banking? A Clear Overview

Open banking is a modern, secure, and cost-effective way for both businesses and consumers to access financial services. It allows individuals to authorise the sharing of their banking data and to initiate direct payments through secure APIs (application programming interfaces), typically provided by licensed banks and regulated third-party providers under the PSD2 directive.

These APIs enable two key services:

• Account Information Services (AIS): Gives access to real-time account balances and transaction histories. This is useful for budgeting tools, credit scoring, KYC processes, and personalised analytics.
• Payment Initiation Services (PIS): Allows customers to make direct bank-to-bank payments, bypassing card networks. This often means faster settlement times and lower transaction costs.

For merchants and fintechs, platforms like Noda unlock new possibilities by securely accessing banking information, with customer consent, to understand financial behaviour and tailor services better accordingly. Customers, in turn, benefit from streamlined checkout experiences, instant payments, and flexible financing options that reduce friction and improve convenience.

In short, open banking is reshaping the way we pay, save, and interact with financial services, combining strong security, user control, and innovation within a single ecosystem.

How Does Open Banking Work in Malta?

Malta implemented PSD2 into its local law in August 2019, in line with the broader EU regulations, which required banks to adopt the Berlin Group’s NextGenPSD2 technical standards. Most major banks now offer sandbox and production APIs for AIS and PIS. Digital identification and compliance rely on EU-wide eIDAS frameworks. Meanwhile, Malta’s widespread digital infrastructure, with 88% internet access and ~60% online banking adoption, lays the groundwork for open banking growth, even as adoption remains at an early stage.

Malta Open Banking Overview: Scarce Adoption & Huge Potential

Malta remains digitally advanced, yet, unlike similarly digitalised countries (for example Estonia), it is slow to embrace open banking in practice. While 88% of households have high-speed internet and over 60% of banking customers actively use mobile or online banking platforms, very few licensed Account Information Service Providers (AISPs) or Payment Initiation Service Providers (PISPs) currently operate in the market, indicating limited real-world usage as of 2025.

Though more than 50% of Maltese financial services firms report taking steps toward digital transformation, including API readiness, actual deployment of open banking services remains scarce.

Meanwhile, the broader fintech sector shows promise, with surveys suggesting that 90% of firms have considered open banking; however, these discussions haven’t yet translated into a widespread rollout. Finally, Malta’s B2C e-commerce reached €2.9 billion in digital payments in 2024, up 2.1 percentage points from the previous year, indicating strong digital maturity that isn’t yet matched by open banking adoption.

Open Banking Payment Gateways & Processors in Malta

• Traditional rails: Card networks, static IBAN transfers, and emerging instant SEPA support through systems like Moneybase’s instant payments.
• Local PSPs: Maltese fintech companies Moneybase, Apcopay and Truevo are driving mobile and embedded payments.
• Global PSPs, such as Stripe, Adyen, and PayPal, operate in Malta but still rely on traditional rails. Few yet integrate account-to-account payments.
• Bank APIs: Most banks offer AIS and PIS APIs as part of PSD2 compliance, but these are not yet fully integrated into merchant checkout experiences.

Open Banking Providers in Malta

• APS Bank and other local banks: Although scarce, some open banking solutions are available through Maltese banks, such as APS Bank and Lombard Bank Malta.
• Pan-EU providers, such as Tink, TrueLayer, and Yapily, are accessible; however, bank coverage of each must be checked individually.
• Noda: Our platform connects to all major European banks and 2,000+ globally via a single API. We offer payment initiation, account data, instant verification, transaction analytics, settlement, payouts, and real-time webhooks.

Future of Open Banking in Malta – Final Thoughts

The European Union’s upcoming PSD3/PSR package (likely to be implemented by mid-2027) promises legally mandated multi-product data sharing and improved access to infrastructure. The MFSA’s sandbox and Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) updates are also reinforcing cyber and risk frameworks.

As Malta’s digital economy gains momentum, the role of open banking is becoming increasingly important. With over 60% of adults now using online or mobile banking and e-commerce steadily expanding year over year, the foundation for a connected, API-powered financial system is already in place. But despite having the regulatory framework (PSD2) and a digitally savvy population, open banking in Malta still feels more like potential than reality. The next two to three years will be pivotal: a chance for open banking to transition from being just a regulatory requirement to becoming a genuine commercial advantage, one that consumers actually interact with at checkout, during onboarding, or when making financial decisions.

This is where companies like Noda come in. We’re not waiting for the market to catch up, we’re building the future of European financial services now. Our infrastructure supports advanced features like variable recurring payments (VRP), enabling flexible, bank-based subscriptions. We’re also paving the way for seamless cross-border e-commerce across Europe, using local payment rails to simplify international sales. With embedded banking tools and real-time financial data, Noda empowers online merchants to deliver faster checkouts, smarter insights, and lower payment costs driving the next wave of personalised, open banking experiences.

Why Choose Noda?

Noda offers the ready infrastructure and partner ecosystem to help you with:

• Comprehensive coverage: Instant access to APIs from and 2,000+ across 28+ countries in Europe.
• Extremely low fees: Keep margins high with transaction costs starting around 0.1%, giving Maltese merchants a competitive pricing edge.
• Multi‑rail payment support: Seamlessly combine open banking, card payments, Apple Pay, and Google Pay into one unified platform for maximum flexibility.
• Seamless integration: Convenient integrations via API, plugins for Woocommerce, Magento, Opencart, Prestashop and no-code solutions like payment links, QR codes, and branded payment pages.
• Local-ready: Get a dedicated personal account manager who will support your business from day one, guiding you through onboarding and staying by your side every step of the way. As a Member of the Finance Malta Association, Noda brings deep local insight and is always ahead of the curve when it comes to open banking in Malta.

Contact Noda for a no-obligation demo – our open banking experts are ready to look into your unique business case.