A legal entity authorised by Národná banka Slovenska under Act No 492/2009 Coll. on payment services to provide one or more of the PSD2 payment services on a commercial basis. Authorisation, conduct, and supervision are entirely with NBS; the rules sit in Act 492/2009, Decree No 14/2011, and Methodological Guideline No 5/2012. A PI is not a credit institution and may not take deposits or grant credit beyond the narrow PSD2 ancillary credit window.

Initial capital is set in three tiers, mirroring Article 7 of PSD2: EUR 20,000 for money remittance only, EUR 50,000 for a payment-initiation-services-only firm, and EUR 125,000 for institutions running the broader execution, issuing, acquiring, or account-servicing services. Beyond initial capital, own funds must be maintained on an ongoing basis under one of the three PSD2 calculation methods; NBS sets the applicable method during supervisory review and revisits it as the institution’s volume profile changes.

Yes. The PSD2 passporting regime applies in full — a Slovak PI can provide payment services into any other EU/EEA state by way of either freedom of services or a branch, subject to the standard NBS notification to the host competent authority. The passport covers the services in the original Slovak authorisation and nothing beyond; if you want to add a service later, NBS amends the authorisation first and only then can the host-state notification be updated.

Any acquirer crossing the qualifying-holding thresholds in a Slovak PI needs prior NBS approval. The submission covers the buyer’s identity and group structure, source of funds, fit-and-proper proof on the new beneficial owners and proposed management, and the business plan for the entity post-closing. NBS will not waive the assessment because the seller wants a fast close; the prudent path is to submit early, keep the file complete, and let the supervisor’s review run while the commercial documentation is finalised.

The European Parliament and Council reached provisional political agreement on PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation on 27 November 2025. National implementation is expected around 2027–2028. PSD3 will fold electronic-money institutions into the PI framework as a sub-category and tighten the conduct rules through the directly applicable PSR. For an acquirer today, the read is straightforward: a clean Slovak PI authorisation is a forward-compatible asset, but the buyer’s hundred-day plan should already include the PSR readiness work — strong customer authentication, fraud-data sharing, IBAN-name checks — that supervisors will start to look for before the directive transposes.

Buyers who need the entity in market in months rather than 12 to 18, and buyers who value a clean supervisory record more than a clean balance sheet. The economics rarely favour acquisition over fresh authorisation in pure-cost terms; the case is about time, deal certainty on banking, and the optionality of stepping into an existing safeguarding relationship. Strategic acquirers and PE platforms usually qualify; a single-founder fintech with a long runway typically does not.