With migration to the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) all but complete, the European payments industry is now faced with several new challenges. Mostly driven by innovation, these include the global rise of Person-to-Person mobile payments and instant payments.

Inspired by this innovation, the European Payments Council (EPC) has taken the opportunity to implement some small scale innovation of its own in the form of a new look newsletter. This move is in line with the evolution of the EPC’s governance model in 2015 and its desire for enhanced stakeholder involvement and dialogue in all its activities. 

In order to ensure the newsletter covers an overall view of the market, it will continue to include external contributions allowing others to give their views on hot payments topics. In this edition, the Electronic Payment Association® (NACHA) in the U.S. shares some updates on its Same Day ACH project showing that, on either side of the Atlantic, making payments faster in order to answer customer needs is what the financial industry is striving for.

In addition, given the hype surrounding the emergence of blockchain, the EPC, last December, gathered experts from all sides of the payment industry to determine an answer to the question of whether blockchain is a short-lived illusion or, in fact, a real game changer.

As always, the newsletter also contains information regarding the latest developments on the EPC’s various core activities including, in this edition, the consultations on the existing schemes, the brand-new SCT Inst scheme and the Card Volume.

The EPC hopes that readers find the new look newsletter informative and interesting, and looks forward to keeping them updated on these various topics throughout the upcoming consultations.