Financial institutions are currently in the full swing of their Basel II (CRD) implementation, all those with investment services are planning for the changes that MiFID will bring, insurance companies are energetically lobbying so that they get the Solvency II directive that they want. The Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) is the next major EU regulatory change that needs to be planned for – and it is not too far away!
SEPA will affect all those, financial and non-financial institutions alike, who make and receive payments in the euro area. It plans to eliminate the national differences in processing for both cross-border and national payments facilities, to open up the market to competition and, in the long run, to reduce the cost of transactions. It is a major process, standards and systems change and will also ask many strategic questions as to what services institutions will continue to offer and what new services could be created.
Feedback from European banks in 2005 sent the message that this was too much, too soon, coming on top of Basel II, MiFID and Solvency II. However this concern was discounted by the EC and the European Central Bank who reaffirmed, in their February progress report, that they still expect that, from 2008, European consumers will be able to use their bank cards across the area, set up automatic withdrawals and transfer funds, and that, from 2010, a full service would be available to industry and consumers.
In order to support the SEPA initiative, and, one imagines, to strengthen their position as a major cross-border player, ABN AMRO Transaction Banking, in conjunction with Euromoney, has published a guide to SEPA that outlines the impacts for corporates and suggests initial steps.
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