Article: Moving towards the Single Euro Payments Area — the challenge ahead

27 April 2006

Geoffroy de Schrevel, Head, Payments Market, Banking Industry Division, SWIFT, analyses the efforts required from the banking community to make SEPA a success. “The challenge of achieving SEPA should not be under-estimated”, Mr de Schrevel underlines. “With SEPA, all market participants will be required to change the way they make and manage electronic payments. The full move to SEPA is thus a challenge of a completely different dimension from that of changing banknotes.“

“Cap Gemini expects an overall decrease in banks' revenues from existing payment instruments of between EUR 13bn and EUR 29bn. Substantial investment coupled with plummeting revenues should encourage banks to look for the maximum economies of scale and scope that SEPA can offer. They should particularly focus on payments highways and on leveraging any investment they have already made in open and global platforms and solutions.”

Copyright © Banking Technology — This story was originally published in Banking Technology,. Author: Geoffroy de Schrevel, Head, Payments Market, Banking Industry Division, SWIFT.

Full article

NA