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The basic elements of SEPA (payment instruments, standards and legal basis) are the building blocks on which further, innovative services can evolve. Some users, for instance the ones with significant numbers of daily payment transactions, are used to making payments in a highly developed electronic environment. SEPA products must advance to mirror their needs.
At the same time, innovation should not lead to new fragmentation: new solutions should be offered not only in the national context but throughout Europe, with the same user experience and high service level.
The long-term goal of SEPA is to create a dynamic retail payment market that makes the best use of available technologies, so that best practice and high user acceptance can evolve for all economic situations in which payments are made.
eSEPA means a Single Euro Payments Area in which service providers make use of advanced information and communication technology when offering pre-payment, payment and/or post-payment services. eSEPA is a synonym for a well functioning competitive market where value added services are offered in addition to SEPA’s core and basic services. more
In time, paper-based credit transfers will disappear. Once payments are made solely electronically, they can be cleared and settled via straight-through processing (STP) not only between payment service providers but in their communication with customers too. This presents a large potential for cost and time savings as manual, error-prone intervention is no longer needed.
The Eurosystem encourages work in this field. It supports the EPC’s initiative to work on common rules and standards for online payments and develop a framework for mobile payments. The Eurosystem also welcomes the efforts made by the European Commission’s e-invoicing expert group to align existing e-invoicing solutions and set up pan-European e-invoicing. It sees such initiatives as very important, as they will help SEPA to become a success for all stakeholders as well as for the European economy.
Conclusions of the ECOFIN Council, 2 December 2009:
“The Council […]ACKNOWLEDGES the importance of equal treatment between electronic and paper invoices for value added tax purposes as well as the importance of developing innovative payment solutions underpinning an efficient and competitive European economy and therefore CALLS upon industry to deliver solutions for online electronic payments (e-payments) and for mobile payments (m-payments) and on banks and payment service providers to develop and actively market attractive e-payment and m-payment services thereby fostering alternative channels for the initiation and reception of payments.”
eSEPA services are offered to customers before and after the payment itself. The aim is to make the handling of payments easy and fast, e.g. by embedding it into products and services.
Such innovative services are already used in many countries, but they do not necessarily work across borders. Within SEPA, national fragmentation should, of course, also disappear in this context.
For more details on eSEPA services see also "Types of eSEPA services" on the eSEPA website
