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The future of payments is instant and most countries in the euro area are moving with the times. This is a natural development, following the rise of real-time services in other industries.
The industry (with the support of the Eurosystem) has stepped up to the challenge and developed a scheme and an infrastructure that enable such services to become the new normal for euro payments.
Now it is time to go one step further and provide efficient and innovative end-user solutions that allow consumers and businesses across Europe to make instant payments in any payment situation, especially at the point of sale, where the majority of retail payments are made.
Mr. Mersch encourages new and existing service providers to take the opportunity to develop pan-European point-of-sale solutions based on instant payments. These solutions should be efficient, user-friendly and secure.
High security standards are essential to retain public trust. Mr. Mersch therefore reiterates his call to payment service providers to adhere to the PSD2 regulatory technical standards on strong customer authentication and common and secure communication as soon as possible, even before they are legally required to do so.
By providing services that are safe, as well as fast and convenient, the payments industry will succeed in meeting the needs of a digitalised society.