Stiftgasse 15-17/8, A-1070 Wien
Phone: +43/1/505 32 80-0, Fax: +43/1/505 32 80-77
E-Mail: office@austrianpaymentscouncil.at
Internet: www.austrianpaymentscouncil.at
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Austrian Payments Council Stiftgasse 15-17/8, A-1070 Wien Phone: +43/1/505 32 80-0, Fax: +43/1/505 32 80-77 E-Mail: office@austrianpaymentscouncil.at Internet: www.austrianpaymentscouncil.at |
| SEPA – Basic principles Political background At the time of the introduction of the euro as the common European currency, the intentions of those politically responsible far exceeded the replacement of individual currencies: by the year 2010 Europe was to have developed into the globally strongest economic area. An essential precondition for this was identified as being a uniform, integrated financial market. In turn, this resulted in the basic reorganization of practically all structures relevant to the market. As the only way of getting this enormous process of change on the move, which initially meant high investments for potentially diminished earnings for the large number of those involved, in the establishment of new legal outline conditions, the „Financial Service Action Plan“ (FSAP) was put forward by the EU commission in 1999 and adopted by the European Council in Lisbon in March 2000. SEPA - Context Altogether, the FSAP contains no fewer than 42 directives, which affect wide areas of the banking and insurance industries and which in the meantime have been largely taken on in the national legal standards. An essential ingredient of the FSAP, although it is to be regarded as more of a vision than a concrete directive, is SEPA – the introduction of the single euro payment area. The concept of a uniform payment transaction area has the aim of significantly reducing the cost of money transactions for goods and services within the EU as well as simplifying and accelerating the transfer. The European payment transaction method is compared with that of America, where, with almost the same size of economic area, a unified payment transaction system with uniform products is in place. Above all, SEPA is so important to the finance industry because the most (and the most expensive) changes will arise from it, which in addition may well lead to reduced earnings. SEPA - Vision "SEPA" is defined as ll the 27 EU countries (plus Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Monaco), whose “citizens, companies and other commercial participants make all their payments, within and without their frontiers in euros“ – they must be able to do this „under the conditions and uniform outline conditions“ with „the same obligations and rights“ and also settle them within „the same standards and infrastructures“. The SEPA vision works on the assumption that by the beginning of 2008 the „core product schemes“ will be ready to be used by the customers in the national payment transaction system. These basic products are the credit transfer and the direct debit as well as the SEPA card framework, which regulates the outline conditions for the use of payment cards in the EU. As a further consequence, The EU commission sees the demand, that a critical mass of national payment transaction volumes will migrate to the SEPA standard and thereby generate economies of scale in favour of the new, European standards – this should be attained by 2010. SEPA – Main participants SEPA stands in the area of conflict of the EU commission, the European System of Central Banking (ESZB) and the European Payments Council (EPC). This tightest of circles of participants brings respective differences of interests into the plan, so at present SEPA is still representing incoherent views and is to be regarded more as a superior vision of political intentions. The EU commission stipulated the standardization with regard to the fees for the payment transaction in September 2009 (EU regulation 924/2009). This brought improvements for Austrian customers, but generated some imbalance in the European banking environment. The main focus of attention for the commission’s work was the creation of a uniform legal framework for the European payment transaction (new legal framework – NLF). The European Central Bank (EZB), in its attested role of promoting the smooth functioning of the payment transaction, introduced the requirements for „SEPA for citizens“, „SEPA for infrastructures“ and „SEPA for corporates“. In agreement with the EPC the milestones for the implementation were fixed for January 2008 („SEPA for citizens“) and 2010 (critical mass of transactions via the SEPA procedure). In April 2005, the EPC as an agreement between the European banks and banking associations (and in coordination with the EZB) decided on a corresponding plan of implementation, published it and committed itself to its implementation by 2008. |