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Tag archive: European Payments Council
2014 was a year of change
24
Dec
2014
If there is one word that would characterize the year 2014, then it would be ‘change’. The year was full of changes in the area of payments, banking and technology. The long-awaited offend-date for SEPA, innovations in the field of mobile payment and (still limited) acceptance of Bitcoin are the most important changes. Even though […]
Join the Debate on the Further Evolution of the SEPA Credit Transfer and SEPA Direct Debit Schemes: Less Flexibility, More Harmonisation?
19
Jun
2014
This is a guest bog post from Javier Santamaría, Chair of the European Payments Council (EPC) European Union (EU) integration rarely follows the fastest possible trajectory, but relies on incremental progress over time. More than 14 years of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) in the making, based on several EU legislative interventions aimed at […]
Waivers to smoothen SEPA migration
13
Dec
2013
The end date is in sight, Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) will become reality on February 1st 2014. Every country in the SEPA zone has to be ready by then, because the introduction won’t be postponed. Some national banks have indicated that they need more time to implement some parts of SEPA. However, the SEPA […]
Payment service users confirm: SEPA migration is manageable, feasible and beneficial
15
Oct
2013
Javier Santamaría is the chairman of the European Payments Council (EPC), which supports and promotes the creation of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). As requested by the EU authorities, the EPC developed, in close dialogue with the customer community, the SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) and SEPA Direct Debit Schemes (SDD), which help to realize the integrated Euro payments market. Just […]
Red lights for Estonia and Germany SEPA migration
23
Sep
2013
Results in the recently published qualitative SEPA indicators for the second quarter of 2013 report show several countries significantly struggling in SEPA migration. The European Central Bank examined various countries to assess SEPA progress by stakeholder groups on a country level. The corporate sector in Germany might not complete migration to SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) […]
Standardization: What does ISO 20022 mean?
13
Aug
2013
The European payments area will be standardized; from February 1st 2014 on this will be known as SEPA. From this date on the current paying methods in 33 countries are not operational anymore. This means that the participating countries have a lot of catching up to do in transforming the current structures into SEPA structures; […]
Version 6.5 of SEPA Cards Standardisation Volume is ready for public consultation
18
Jun
2013
The European Payments Council (EPC) and the Cards Stakeholders Group (CSG) published version 6.5 of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) Cards Standardisation Volume last week. The document defines a standard set of requirements to ensure an interoperable and scalable card and terminal infrastructure across SEPA. All market participants and interested parties are invited to […]
ECB: Many advantages of SEPA already exist
04
Mar
2013
“It is a general misconception that the migration to SEPA will be completed on February 1, 2014,” says Wiebe Ruttenberg, Head of Market Integration Division at the European Central Bank (ECB). “On that date we will have ‘only’ completed the migration to SEPA Credit Transfer and SEPA Direct Debit within the Euro area. This means […]
The progress of SEPA
10
Dec
2012
Let’s take a quick look back into the history. When the European Payments Council (EPC) in 2003 decided that SEPA would become the standard, Luxembourg was the first country that went full speed ahead. The rest of the countries followed later, with each country taking the step in its own pace. Nine years after the […]
XML: the key ingredient for truly standardised SEPA data formats
26
Nov
2012
Ruth Wandhöfer is Head of Regulatory & Market Strategy at Citi Transaction Services. In this blog post she discusses how local variations in SEPA data formats form a threat to market harmonisation. The major barrier preventing SEPA from becoming a reality lies in the different data formats that are in place to process payments across […]
