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The Commission published a major study into the costs, benefits and opportunities created by SEPA. The study shows that in the most favourable scenario the net benefits to payments markets over the next six years could amount to as much as 123 billion euros with users gaining most. The study also estimates that if SEPA can be used as a platform for e-invoicing there are further potential gains of 238 billion euros. Using SEPA as a platform, banks are well positioned to offer e-invoicing services. This could produce a potential net benefit to the market of 238 billion euros over the same period.
The study assesses the costs and benefits of SEPA for the supply (banks) and demand (customers) sides over a 6 year time framework (2007–2012) for four corner scenarios to asses the impact of SEPA on the key stakeholders.
Overall the most important findings are:
- The SEPA Big Time scenario holds a market potential of up to 123 billion euros in benefits (cumulative over 6 years, namely 2007 to 2012) with a significant upside for all demand side stakeholders while allowing banks to retain current margins.
- Consumers gain in all scenarios, while other stakeholders benefit - by tens of billions of euros - in the Demand Pull and SEPA Big Time scenarios.
- SEPA clearly tempers the margins of the supply side; however, even in the most aggressive scenario the margins still grow in absolute terms compared to 2006. As decreases in operational costs made possible by SEPA outweigh revenue reductions, annual total banks profits for payments are forecast to increase from 10 billion euros in 2006 to 21 billion euros in 2012.