Spain’s open banking market is on the rise and is fast becoming one of the most promising across Europe.

Thanks to a centralised API hub (Redsys), a maturing fintech ecosystem, and incoming EU legislation aimed at improving connectivity, Spain is poised for a sharp uptick in open banking adoption. Market forecasts suggest the open banking sector in Europe could grow from €6 billion in 2020 to €48 billion by 2030, with global projections exceeding $123 billion by 2031.

But what does that mean in practice for PSPs and merchants operating in—or expanding into—Spain? What does adoption look like today? Which providers are worth considering? And is the infrastructure stable and scalable enough for your business needs?

Read on to find out.

In this article:

• How well has Spain adopted open banking?
• What does the future of open banking in Spain look like?
• Three reasons to use Yapily for open banking in Spain
• How Emma used open banking to scale faster and improve UX

Looking for an open banking provider with high coverage in Spain and a broad range of payment and data solutions? Yapily could be the perfect fit—book a call with one of our experts to find out more.

How well has Spain adopted open banking?

Spain’s open banking story began later than many of its neighbours. PSD2 was implemented in Spanish law in early 2019, two years after the European deadline. That late start meant banks were slow to roll out APIs, and those that did often used different standards.

To fix this, Spanish banks and financial institutions collaborated through Redsys to launch a unified PSD2 API gateway. This allowed regulated third-party providers (TPPs) to connect to over 80 banks via a standardised interface (based on Berlin Group). This greatly improved reliability and lowered the barrier to entry for fintechs and PSPs.

That said, adoption has been cautious.

One reason is the success of Bizum—a domestic peer-to-peer payment scheme with over 25 million users. It’s fast, familiar, and integrated directly into users’ mobile banking apps, which has arguably reduced the urgency for alternative A2A payment methods powered by open banking.

At the same time, Spanish consumers tend to be more privacy-sensitive than in markets like the UK or Nordics. Research shows that only 60% of Spaniards are open to trying open banking products, compared to higher enthusiasm elsewhere in the EU.

However, momentum is building. Spain’s fintech sector has grown sixfold since 2015, with over 1,000 companies now operating in payments, lending, personal finance, and more. Regulatory sandboxes and startup legislation have also made it easier to test and launch compliant open banking use cases.

And while user adoption still trails markets like the UK, open banking API availability, performance, and developer tooling have improved considerably over the past 18 months, especially among top-tier banks.

What does the future of open banking in Spain look like?

Several major EU-wide developments will likely accelerate open banking growth in Spain over the next few years:

SEPA Instant Payments Regulation

In February 2024, the European Parliament approved legislation requiring all euro-denominated credit transfers to be available 24/7 and to settle within 10 seconds. This applies to both consumers and businesses—and will force Spanish banks to ensure their systems support real-time processing.

This matters for open banking because instant payments make account-to-account (A2A) use cases more viable. Where previously a PIS transaction might take hours or days, SEPA Instant—as the name suggests–makes it instantaneous. This opens the door to open banking-powered checkout, subscriptions, loan disbursement, and more.

PSD3 and PSR

The next version of PSD—combined with the Payment Services Regulation (PSR)—will address many of PSD2’s pain points. It will:

• Introduce stronger consumer protections
• Force banks to improve API quality and reliability
• Extend access rights to TPPs
• Refine Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)

For PSPs and merchants, this means fewer payment failures, more consistent user flows, and less developer friction.

FiDA (Financial Data Access)

FiDA represents the EU’s next step toward open finance. Where PSD2 focused on payment accounts, FiDA will extend data access to:

• Savings
• Loans
• Insurance
• Investments

This allows businesses to create richer, more personalised financial products—combining payments and data to serve users more holistically.

All of this means the infrastructure in Spain is improving, the legislation is maturing, and the potential for new open banking–powered products is only growing.

Three reasons to use Yapily for open banking in Spain

Spain’s open banking landscape is evolving fast. Infrastructure is improving. Regulation is strengthening. And expectations from consumers and businesses are rising. Choosing the right provider now can give you a serious edge, whether you’re launching in Spain or already scaling across Europe.

Here’s why Yapily stands out:

1. Strong business account coverage across Spain, the EU, and the UK

While many open banking providers focus on consumer accounts, Yapily offers reliable access to both consumer and business accounts. In Spain, we connect to more than 50 banks, covering around 95% of all banked users. That includes large national banks like Santander, BBVA, and CaixaBank, as well as regional and business-focused institutions.

Across the EU and UK, our infrastructure connects to nearly 2,000 banks. That means you can serve customers across 19 countries through a single provider, without juggling multiple integrations or licensing frameworks.

We also go beyond raw banking data access. Yapily Data Plus enhances financial data with transaction categorisation, merchant name enrichment, and spending insights. Incoming and outgoing transactions are broken down into over 90 categories, giving you a clear picture of user behaviour, whether you’re assessing affordability, identifying recurring bills, or helping a business understand its cash flow.

This level of enrichment is especially valuable for PSPs, lenders, and fintechs building onboarding, scoring, or PFM tools. And because it’s all delivered through one API, you can scale your product without increasing operational complexity.

2. Flexible integration options to match your product roadmap

No two teams have the same integration needs. Some want full control over the user experience; others need to launch fast without building everything from scratch. That’s why we offer two options.

With our white-label API, you can build the entire open banking journey into your own product. The user stays on your app or site, interacting with your interface, not a third-party redirect. That helps you maintain brand consistency, build trust, and reduce drop-off, especially during sensitive flows like onboarding or payments.

Alternatively, you can use our hosted solution to get to market quickly. It’s a ready-made interface that handles authentication, consent, and data collection securely. You can customise branding and styling, and it’s ideal for MVPs, pilots, or interim solutions while your team builds a deeper integration.

Both options are fully PSD2-compliant, developer-friendly, and designed to give you flexibility as your product matures.

3. One provider for both open banking payments and data

Yapily is authorised as both a Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP) and an Account Information Service Provider (AISP). That means you can access both payment and data services through a single API and contract—no need to manage multiple vendors or patch together separate systems.

This is especially powerful if your customer journey includes both verification and payment. For example, you can:

• Validate identity and check affordability through AIS
• Let the user fund an account or repay a loan using PIS
• Enable recurring or bulk payments for wallets, subscriptions, or invoices

Everything is integrated, secure, and fully aligned with EU regulatory standards.

Case study: how Emma used open banking to scale faster and improve UX

Emma is a personal finance app that helps users track spending, manage subscriptions, and invest through Emma Invest. To improve customer experience, they wanted to streamline the way users moved money from their bank accounts into the app, without needing to leave Emma or switch to their bank’s mobile app.

By integrating Yapily’s AISP and PISP services, Emma was able to aggregate accounts across multiple banks, show users their real-time balances, and let them top up their Emma Invest account instantly, directly from their connected bank account.

The results were immediate:

• Over 30,000 users started investing within a month of launch
• Monthly transaction volume rose by 267%
• Payment consents issued in three months exceeded the previous 12 months combined

By using Yapily to power both data and payments through one integration, Emma launched faster, improved retention, and created a far more intuitive user experience.

Read the full Emma case study: How Emma + Yapily are helping people make smarter financial decisions

Choose Yapily as your open banking provider in Spain

Open banking in Spain is gaining serious momentum. The infrastructure is maturing, the regulation is strengthening, and customer expectations are shifting toward faster, more personalised financial experiences.

But taking advantage of this opportunity depends on choosing the right partner.

Yapily offers market-leading coverage across Spain and the rest of Europe, a developer-first API built for performance and scale, and the flexibility to integrate however you need, whether you’re launching fast or building deeply integrated financial flows.

With both payments and data available through a single provider, we make it easier to offer seamless onboarding, faster checkouts, richer insights, and better customer journeys.

If you’re looking to expand your open banking capabilities in Spain, Yapily can help you do it securely, reliably, and at scale.

Ready to see what Yapily could do for your business? Book a call with our team to learn more.