1 1 October 2006

News:

European bank executives believe that SEPA compliance will cost them more than initially expected, according to an Accenture research study undertaken by PSE Consulting, while a study for First Data International found doubts that the compliance deadline of 2008 will be met.

The Belgium Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, has called on the EU to open negotiations with the US over the transfer of data from Belgium headquartered SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, to the US Treasury for counter-terrorism analysis.

Prepaid cards usage in Europe will grow 600 per cent to €75 billion by 2010 while 375 million cards will be in circulation, a 1,000 per cent increase over 2005, according to a new report titled, Prepaid Cards: A Critical Market Foundation of Europe's SEPA Plans from the European Banking Payments Practice at the Tower Group.

Features:

The next few years promises to be a time of dramatic change for those involved in e-finance and payments. A recent study by Booz Allen Hamilton predicts a doubling of worldwide electronic payments by 2010 with growth equal to four times the expected growth in GDP.

The Payment Services Directive is intended to remove the legal barriers to the creation of the Single European Payments Area (SEPA) and will have fundamental consequences for all those involved in the payments industry. In this article, part one of a three part series, William Long and John Casanova, editors of E-Finance & Payments Law & Policy, will consider the scope and background to the Directive.

Developing a Single European Payments Area is the biggest challenge that the banking and payments industry has faced in twenty years. As the first in a series of regular articles on SEPA, David Birch, a Director of Hyperion and Peter Jones, from PSE Consulting, look at how the industry is coping.

Suppliers, processors and retailers forced to comply with common security standards have, despite initial doubts, found significant benefits for their businesses from their implementation. Payment systems consultant, Mike Hendry, reports.

The E-Money Directive was designed both to regulate and facilitate the emerging e-money market. In this article, the first of a two part series, William Long and John Casanova examine the current state of the market, and the need for reform of the Directive.