European payment professionals have revealed
their ‘overwhelming’ disappointment in SEPA’s progress with the
Financial Services Club claiming it will remain a “headless
chicken” unless an end-date is decided.
In the second survey of its kind, the
Financial Services Club aimed to find out how the implementation of
the Payments Services Directive (PSD) and Single Euro Payments Area
(SEPA) are viewed a year on.
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Results showed that while 85 percent of those
surveyed said the PSD process had been successful, over two thirds
of respondents (68 percent) said they expect a new PSD to replace
the deficiencies of the first, namely the use of derogations in
some countries.
The Financial Services Club quotes one
respondent who said: “There are many uncertainties around the PSD
such as the interpretation of the PSD in Swiss Banks, the PSD
implementation in Central and Eastern Europe, the speed of
implementation in Southern Europe, and lots of legal documents with
conflicting contents.”
However, despite these concerns, 66 percent of
bank respondents claimed they had seen major change as the result
of the PSD implementation.
SEPA received a less enthusiastic response.
The majority, 54 percent, believe the initiative is not succeeding,
and 7 percent of industry professionals claim they understand the
process less well when compared to last year’s survey results.
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By GlobalDataThe predicted date for SEPA’s vision for “all
Eurozone payment transactions to be processed as though they were
domestic” could be as late as 2017 according to the majority of the
respondents (43 percent) – less optimistic than a year ago where 49
percent believed it would be achieved before 2014.
“Last year’s survey identified major cynicism
about the implementation of the PSD, with many saying that
derogations and optional services would cause confusion and a lack
of parity,” said Chris Skinner, chairman of the Financial Services
Club.
“Unfortunately this has proven to be the case,
but what concerns me is that the cynicism has spread to SEPA. Banks
and corporates just don’t get where it’s heading, and this lack of
direction is caused by the absence of an end date. Even with the
SEPA Council and the Commission’s consultation on an end-date, we
still don’t have one and, until we do, this headless chicken will
remain just that.”
Respondents claim the lack of support shown
towards SEPA can be attributed to a lack of perceived benefits,
bank and corporate resistance, limitations by countries through the
use of derogations and above all, the absence of an end-date.
322 people took part in the survey, sponsored
by technology service providers Logica, representing 42 nations
globally.
