Inhaltszusammenfassung

The payment industry is a network industry. None of the current European service providers has the power to tip the market on its own. It will be necessary for them to form new alliances among members who are strongly convinced that SEPA will improve significantly their own economics. The ?old? alliances, which build and maintain the actual payment infrastructure, are not sufficiently motivated to create SEPA in a self-regulated process purely driven by market forces. The creation of SEPA wil...The payment industry is a network industry. None of the current European service providers has the power to tip the market on its own. It will be necessary for them to form new alliances among members who are strongly convinced that SEPA will improve significantly their own economics. The ?old? alliances, which build and maintain the actual payment infrastructure, are not sufficiently motivated to create SEPA in a self-regulated process purely driven by market forces. The creation of SEPA will first lead to higher costs to set up new payment infrastructures and to run old and new infrastructures in parallel. During the initial phase of running parallel infrastructure, SEPA?s potential on the revenue side is vulnerable to the effects of cannibalisation. For the foreseeable future, the net effects between the potential cost savings ? mainly due to realisation of economies of scope and scale ? and the costs of closing down existing national infrastructure will not be fully convincing to all important stakeholders of the European payment industry. SEPA?s cost savings and revenue potential are unevenly distributed among European banks. Banks with an international operational infrastructure identify positive synergies more easily than banks with a purely domestic strategy and infrastructure. The ability to establish new strategies to explore additional sources of revenue in the payments business depends on the individual bank?s innovative strength in the field of transaction business. Operational and strategic readiness for e-business (e-SEPA), a prerequisite to utilise the cost savings and revenue potential for example of e-invoicing, is not yet recognised among all European bankers. There are differences between banks? deliverables to realise SEPA and the expectations of ?innovative? service, requested in the speeches of the European Commission and ECB officials. More effort is needed to bring service improvements significantly above the lowest denominator of existing national service levels. As explained by examples, certain market segments in Europe?s payments business are not fully satisfied with current service offers. Some of these customers might align thmselves with banks, which are fully committed to the potential and the expected innovations of SEPA. These new alliances of ?innovative? banks and non-banking institutions will look for payment products that will serve their needs better than the current ones. Until the new alliances are formed, the Commission and the ECB will have to continue to promote the SEPA process. Regulations are necessary to facilitate the launch of SEPA products and to ensure European-wide reachability with the new SEPA standards. It will even be necessary to regulate the existing business models (for example by providing clear guidance with respect to ?multilateral interchange fees?) to help the banking industry to come forward with business models suitable for SEPA.» weiterlesen» einklappen

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Klassifikation

DFG Fachgebiet:
Wirtschaftswissenschaften

DDC Sachgruppe:
Management