Paris/Frankfurt: The Open Forum on Pan-European Instant Payments was successfully kicked off in Frankfurt yesterday, with 77 representatives from 55 payment service providers, technology providers and other stakeholders participating in the inaugural meeting. This new forum has been initiated by the Euro Banking Association (EBA), a panEuropean association of payment service providers and suppliers with a focus on payments and operations.
The objective of this supplier-driven forum is to broaden the exchange of views on instant payments among payment practitioners and other stakeholders and to contribute to the upcoming instant payment scheme discussions. The forum also provides a platform for liaising with other entities engaged in evaluating related industry initiatives at a European and global level.
The initiative is a response to a call for action by the Euro Retail Payments Board (ERPB), which has invited the supply side of the payments industry to help achieve an open and competitive market for instant payments in Europe. Based on a vision document created by the European Central Bank (ECB), the ERPB has expressed a need for at least one pan-European instant payment solution for euro open to any payment service provider in the European Union and has invited the supply side to make an assessment of the issues related to the delivery of any such solution.
“The EBA would like to help kick-start the pan-European collaborative effort that will be required to support the end-to-end roll-out of instant payment services in euro across Europe,” said Wolfgang Ehrmann, Chairman of the Euro Banking Association.
“We feel that the initiation of an open forum for payment practitioners and other stakeholders is one important element in the endeavour to make available instant payment services to customers all across Europe. The EBA has a long track record in generating supply side engagement and contributing to the practical delivery of pan-European visions – we are happy to bring this experience and expertise to the instant payment debate and support any solution-building activities with this wider engagement-building exercise.”
The initial meeting of the open forum focused on kicking off the discussions around end-to-end instant payment service requirements and the perimeter of the collaborative space for infrastructure services to support instant payments at a panEuropean level. It included a tour de table among the participants as well as an analysis of the expectations formulated by the ECB and the ERPB and of the underlying ‘layered approach’ for the development of any pan-European solutions for instant payments.
Participation in the discussions is open to representatives of any entity with an interest in contributing to enhanced European electronic payment solutions. The forum is of particular interest to payment service providers, users, suppliers with a special focus on payments and operations, as well as relevant stakeholders in the European and global payments industry.
The discussions at this first meeting of the open forum are expected to trigger further exchanges between participants in the weeks to come. The next meeting of the open forum will be held in Amsterdam on 12th May 2015.
To join the second meeting of the Open Forum on Instant Payments facilitated by the Euro Banking Association, interested parties are invited to send an e-mail by 30th April 2015 to [email protected].
More information about this open forum can be found at www.abe-eba.eu.
