First Data Corp. has announced that it has signed an agreement with EUFISERV and its fifteen shareholders (including twelve European banks and banking organizations) to expand and develop the European inter-bank processing network managed by EUFISERV. The two companies said that "connecting the existing networks of EUFISERV and First Data will create the opportunity for customers to access more than 74,000 ATMs, 1.5 million POS merchants and to reach more than 165 million debit and credit card accounts in Europe."   » Continue Reading

Accenture has announced that it has opened a new facility at its research and development technology lab in Sophia Antipolis, France, dedicated to innovation in the rapidly growing global payments industry. The facility, called the Accenture Payments Innovation Showcase, focuses on original research and development in all facets of the payments business, including mobile communications and other point-of-sale technology, bank-to-corporate connectivity, processing, process models, biometrics, regulation such as the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) initiative, and security.   » Continue Reading

We're back at the Digital Money Forum in London for the day 2 agenda. This morning's topics are focused primarily on European payments issues - SEPA in particular in presentations by Charles Bryan and John Chaplin.

Aneace has done a great job on blogging the two SEPA sessions this morning. In particular, I enjoyed John Chaplin's eight SEPA predictions - along with the two "jokers" that could change everything.

WebMoney also presented on their ecommerce payment system based in Moscow. Colin blogs about WebMoney here.

At its 7th Annual Debit Conference, MasterCard Europe has announced what it calls "the emergence of a series of significant cross-border purchasing trends in Europe coinciding with the official launch of the Single Euro(pean) Payments Area (SEPA)."   » Continue Reading

Dave Bircb blogs about his experience trying to originate a SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) to from his bank in the UK to a colleague's bank in the Netherlands. "So, in summary, sending 50 euros to Amsterdam in the exciting new world of SEPA took two trips to the bank, cost £15 (ie, a transaction fee of 40%) and took three days. Next time, I'll use PayPal."

According to APACS, "from today (28 January) the new SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) Scheme will enable euro credit transfers to be made within a maximum of three days, and without any deductions from the principal amount. The customers who will benefit most are those larger businesses for whom it will make cross-border trade easier, and UK consumers who make regular euro payments because they may, for example, maintain properties abroad."   » Continue Reading

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has published two working papers related to patents and financial services. The first is titled "Business Method Patents for U.S. Financial Services" (PDF) by Robert M. Hunt and the second is titled "Intellectual Property Rights and Standard Setting in Financial Services: The Case of the Single European Payments Area" (PDF) by Robert M. Hunt, Samuli Simojoki, and Tuomas Takalo.

On his blog, Aneace Haddad has posted a presentation he's titled "Making MasterCard's Maestro the preferred debit brand in post-SEPA Europe" in which he discusses the features he thinks any debit product needs to create value for merchants. Aneace's is experimenting with using SlideShow's voice annotated presentation engine for this presentation.

In its Occasional Papers series, the European Central Bank has published a paper titled "The Economic Impact of the Single Euro Payments Area" (PDF) by Heiko Schmiedel. From the abstract: "...banks are expected to face downward pressure on their revenues as competition will increase across borders and as a result of new market entrants."

The European Central Bank has published the fifth in a series of progress reports on the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) (PDF). In particular, the bank has called on the banking industry to set up a rival debit card scheme to challenge the dominance of Maestro in the EU - saying "such a scheme would stimulate competition and would ensure the close involvement of European banks in the governance of the scheme. ... Any additional European debit card scheme should operate under EU law and should, accordingly, process personal data in line with EU data protection laws."

Voca and LINK have completed their merger and announced the launch of "Europe’s first independent pan-European payment service in partnership with 10 banks from across Europe."   » Continue Reading

MasterCard Europe has announced that it will delay the introduction of Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) fallback interchange rates for Maestro point-of-sale (POS) euro transactions, citing continued lack of clarity from competition authorities over interchange fees and opposition from some merchant associations.   » Continue Reading

Aneace Haddad of Welcome Real-time blogs about a potential unintended consequence of SEPA - that the elimination of national debit card monopolies could lead to a spiraling up of interchange fees as brands compete for issuance by banks. Haddad says "now that banks finally have a choice, it will be irresistible for them to choose the brand that offers the highest interchange. The old European national debit brands have never had to deal with this before."

Reuters is reporting on comments made by Visa Europe president and CEO Peter Ayliffe to the effect that any fundamental changes to the current credit card interchange fee structure in Europe (currently under consideration by the European Commission's competition commissioner) could put SEPA at risk.

The European Central Bank has published a progress report entitled “The Eurosystem’s View of a “SEPA for Cards” (PDF). "In this report, the Governing Council of the ECB provides its views on some critical issues concerning the migration of card schemes to the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), and at the same time alerts the market to some developments which could be suboptimal for European citizens."   » Continue Reading

Dave Birch writes on the Digital Money Blog about how lots of folks want to get into the payments business - while those in the payments business don't find it such a great business. The grass is always greener, as they say! Dave explores the implications that the Single European Payments Area (SEPA) might have on this whole business of payments. Good stuff from Dave, as usual!

TowerGroup has announced a new research report titled "Prepaid Cards: A Critical Market Foundation of Europe's SEPA Plans" that concludes that a sharp rise in the deployment of prepaid products over the next 10 years will be key to supporting bank profitability. However, TowerGroup also "believes that European banks success will be elusive as long as the use of cash remains high - underscoring the need for a true debit-based alternative that does not include identity recognition as part of the electronic payment."   » Continue Reading

Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, gave a speech at the EFMA Cards and Payments Conference in which she looked at the future of retail payments in Europe. Among her comments, she says "the experience in Norway is a good indication that cards can become a good replacement for cash as long as they become a more convenient payment instrument than cash." Both the text and presentation slides (PDF) from her speech are available online. Her slides include one very interesting graph showing the consumer payment preferences in France based upon the amount of the purchase.

Compliance with the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) project is driving significant challenges in Europe, with payments industry executives at many of the largest financial institutions reporting much higher estimates of investment costs and fearing that business and technology resources will be stretched as a result, according to a recent Accenture survey.   » Continue Reading

Cardholders of European banks will soon be able to use their payment cards for transactions in other European countries just as easily as in their home country according to the new Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes (EAPS). The executives of several national card payment schemes have agreed on principles of cooperation that will enable the creation of a "new alternative for pan-European payments" that will bring significant additional benefits to banks, retailers and cardholders.   » Continue Reading

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Countdown To SEPA: The Clock is Ticking" that it says "provides insight into the future of the European Card market, information on the history, the current state, and the future of SEPA for the Cards project, identifies the stakeholders and examines what they need to do to become SEPA compliant in light of the consultative documents published by authorities and related parties and discusses a number of scenarios based on what we know about SEPA so far and what some of the the stakeholders have signaled to the market."

Edgar, Dunn & Company's May Insight newsletter features an article by Tanya Martin and Manika Aggarwal titled "Assessing SEPA: Understanding the Strategic Implications for Key Stakeholders in the Cards Business" (PDF). In the article, they question whether the EU/EPC might be "paving the way" for larger payments players (including non-European players such as First Data or Citibank) to dominate the market by "leveling the playing field" with the SEPA principles.

The associations of the German banking industry represented in the Zentraler Kreditausschuss (ZKA) have announced they have signed letters of intent with other European partners for the launch of a pilot project for the mutual acceptance of debit cards between countries with direct bilateral processing of these transactions. The effort will be coordinated by a new Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes without the involvement of the MasterCard or Visa international systems.   » Continue Reading

Febelfin, the Belgian Finance Federation, and Banksys, operator of the entire Belgian debit card system, have announced that the Belgian banks have decided that the national Bancontact/Mister Cash (BC/MC) system for domestic card payments and money withdrawals will be replaced by 2008 with the issuance of Maestro cards, MasterCard's debit card mark.   » Continue Reading

EUFISERV has announced that its board of directors has taken decisions necessary for the EUFISERV ATM card scheme to become compliant with the SEPA Cards Framework (SCF). This will allow the scheme to continue to be a part of the European payment system landscape after the launch of SEPA in 2008.   » Continue Reading