The European Central Bank (ECB) has warned the
European Commission (EC) the Single European Payments Area (SEPA)
initiative faces a “serious risk of failure” if it does not impose
end-dates for migration to the standards.
In a formal response to the EC’s SEPA
regulation proposal the ECB claims although the benefits of the
SEPA project are substantial, the primarily market-driven approach
currently used cannot be characterised as being entirely
successful.
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The prevailing market uncertainty, which has
led to the call for imposed end-dates, has been caused by a number
of factors, according to the ECB. They include: the “generally
difficult” economic climate, the disadvantages for first movers in
a network business and the duplicate costs of operating SEPA and
legacy payment systems in parallel.
“The ECB welcomes and supports the EC’s
proposal to impose end-dates for migration to the SEPA credit
transfer and SEPA direct debit schemes by means of a Union
regulation,” said the ECB.
“A Union act of general application, binding
in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States, is
considered essential for the successful migration to SEPA, as the
project would otherwise risk a serious risk of failure.”
While claiming to take into account the
industry’s need for sufficiently long-lead times, the ECB suggests
deadlines of the end of January 2013 for credit transfers and the
end of January 2014 for direct debits.
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