Recital 26

Directive 2007/64/EC established a prudential regime, introducing a single licence for all providers of payment services which are not connected to taking deposits or issuing electronic money. To that end, Directive 2007/64/EC introduced a new category of payment service providers, namely ‘payment institutions’, by providing for the authorisation, subject to a set of strict and comprehensive conditions, of legal persons outside the existing categories to provide payment services throughout the Union. Thus, the same conditions should apply Union wide to such services.