Is the success of the EPI possible?

Well, there is an ongoing joke, that SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) should actually mean ‘Sending European Payments to America’. That’s because Europe has (so far) been unable to produce their own, fully independent platform to proceed with their payments. For now, the American giants (such as Mastercard or VISA) are still in the lead.

But SEPA is yet another try to unify and harmonize the payments in the Eurozone. The structure responsible for it is the EPI (European Payments Initiative), formed by 16 banks from 5 countries (the Netherlands. Germany, France, Belgium, and Spain). They even got support from European Union policymakers - who have urged other banks to join the initiative too.

EPI also got supported by the ECB (European Central Bank), which highlights the need for safe and integrated infrastructure in Europe. But for now, national payment markets are shattered. That is why the four projects from the past have been buried (PayFair, Monnet, Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes, and EUFSERV).

The high time to get going

Martina Weimert, who is one of the people leading the project, expects a “proof of concept” to be presented in 2021, and has hopes for the launch of the product in 2022. She also claims that the company will make a profit, but maximization of it will not be the initiative’s goal.

But not everyone is so optimistic about the project. EuroCommerce expressed its caution, with the four mentioned and failed projects in the back of their heads. EuroCommerce represents European retailers to the policymakers, and they predict yet another failure unless the merchants will be a part of the final solution. It would also prefer SEPA to be completely non-profit, but Weimert has already stressed, that this is not an option.

You can find more about the EPI’s challenges, goals, and market possibilities in a comprehensive Disruption Banking piece created by Ian Hall. To get access to the article, simply use the following link: https://disruptionbanking.com/2020/12/08/can-the-european-payments-initiative-succeed/.