Speech Tumpel-Gugerell on the outlook for SEPA

07 June 2006

Speaking at the Eurofi Conference on “Europe’s Retail Financial Services” in Brussels Mrs Tumpel-Gugerell, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, outlined the views of the ECB on the creation of a single European payments area.

In order to successfully conduct the SEPA migration Mrs Tumpel-Gugerell said that the ECB and NCBs are ready to give support. “We will present in September a comprehensive timetable for the coming implementation steps of the SEPA project”, she said.

In my view, it is important to remove barriers, to introduce competition and to allow the market to take up the business opportunities”, Mrs Tumpel-Gugerell said. “Standardization, choice of processing systems and single pricing for all SEPA domestic transactions are the steps that should be taken and there a clear signs that indeed the industry is taking these steps” she added.

Full speech

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