NOT LONG AGO the Single Euro Payments Area (Sepa) was seen as the triumphant culmination of the introduction of the euro and the realization of a true single market. Now Sepa is regarded by many as a lame-duck initiative that has failed to deliver benefits for corporates and consumers and that has cost banks hundreds of millions of euros in wasted technology development and running costs.
Across transaction banking – now a core component of many banks’ business strategies following the financial crisis – there are murmurings of discontent. Some industry veterans even privately wish for the destruction of the Sepa project, such has been the scale of the distraction it has caused for banks at a time when corporates need all the help they can get to improve working capital management.
Certainly the European Union political establishment, which decided in the Lisbon Agenda in 2000 to harmonize payment...
