How is the European Payments Council organised?

Without the involvement and technical knowledge of our members it would be impossible to develop and maintain the payment schemes that facilitate over 46 billion transactions each year or to formulate propositions to further harmonise payments.

About 400 payment professionals from across Europe who make up our 77 members and other stakeholders are the true mainspring of the work delivered by the . The 12-person Secretariat team orchestrates and supports their work, which is then approved by the governance bodies.

Our organisation at a glance

General
Assembly Audit
Committee Nominating
and Governance
Committee Board Director General | Secretariat Cards
Working
Group Cash
Efficiency
Working
Group Mobile
Payments
Working
Group Legal
Support
Group Scheme
Management
Board Payment
Security
Support
Group SEPA Proxy
Lookup
SPG Dispute
Resolution
Committee Scheme
End-User
Multi-Stakeholder
Group Scheme
Technical Player
Multi-Stakeholder
Group Payment
Scheme
Fraud Prevention
Working
Group Scheme
Evolution
and Maintenance
Working
Group Scheme
Evolution and
Maintenance
Standards
Taskforce

Further information about the ’s governance is available in the EPC By-laws and SEPA Payment Scheme Management Rules.

Composition of the Scheme Management Board

The EPC Board

Board members are representatives of members (except for the Chair, who may or may not be a representative of a member). Currently formed of 30 members, the Board acts as a collegial body involved in all the ’s major activities.
Composition of the EPC Board

Javier Santamaría

Chair of the European Payments Council

Javier Santamaría is the Chair of the since June 2012, and has been one of its members since its creation in 2002. During decades as a bank employee, Mr Santamaría accumulated a broad and balanced expertise in the intertwined dimensions of payments – business-related, operational, technical, regulatory – across different client segments and product lines, in the legacy and the innovative spheres, which he now further develops as an independent professional. He has been immersed in both cooperative and competitive environments. Besides payments, he is interested in other banking fields and continues to be actively engaged in academic matters. Mr Santamaría is also Chair of the Iberpay Board, member of the Board of Directors at the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (Basel-Frankfurt) and member of the Supervisory Board of Western Union International Bank (Vienna). Former Head of Operations and Business Services, he was Senior Vice President at Banco Santander until December 2016. He was a member of the Board of the Euro Banking Association ( , Paris-Brussels) and of the Board of Directors at the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication cooperative (SWIFT, Brussels) until the end of 2016.

Rita Camporeale

Vice Chair of the European Payments Council

Graduated in Political Science, she worked at the Italian National Central Bank (Banca d’Italia) and then at the European Central Bank from its creation in 1998 until 2002, with the responsibility of coordinating the Oversight Unit within the Payment Systems Policy Division. Her main responsibilities covered wholesale and retail systems, payment instruments, multi-currency foreign exchange settlement systems. In the areas of responsibility, she represented the ECB at meetings of the and G-10 central banks, in the contacts with banking supervisors, the Commission and national authorities as well as in the ECB’s market contact groups. Back in Italy, she joined the Italian Banking Association, where she works as Head of Payment Systems. Over the years she was Project Manager of ABI’s PSD, and projects – coordinating and supporting Italian banks in their activities to ensure compliance with the PSD/ , as well as migration to .
She represents Italian banks in various fora at national and European levels, and in particular in various EBF groups, working groups and -related ones.
From January 2021, she is Chair of the Payment Systems Committee of the European Banking Federation.

Office holders

The Office Holders chair the governance bodies and other working groups.

Diederik Bruggink

Cash Efficiency Working Group Chair
Head of Innovation and Payments - European Savings & Retail Banking Group

Gijs Boudewijn

Legal Support Group Chair
General Manager of the Dutch Payments Association

Dag-Inge Flatraaker

Mobile Payments Working Group Chair
Senior Vice President at DNB Bank

Barbara Hadfield

Dispute Resolution Committee Chair
Retired chartered accountant

Alain Hiltgen

Payment Security Support Group Chair
Head of Business Security Advice, Executive Director, UBS AG

Jean-Yves Jacquelin

Scheme Management Board Chair

Dr. Christian Kleine

Audit Committee Chair
Head of Operations Personal & Corporate
UBS Business Solutions AG

Frans van Beers

Scheme Evolution and Maintenance Working Group Chair
Manager Products and Standards at Dutch Payments Association

Thomas Von der Gathen

Chair of the Payment Scheme Fraud Prevention Working Group
General Counsel at PSA Payment Services Austria GmbH

The EPC Staff

Our office is based in Brussels and has 12 team members from seven countries.

Etienne Goosse

Director General of the European Payments Council

Etienne Goosse is the Director General. He has extensive professional experience across different sectors of the payments industry. He started his career with the Belgian central bank. He held executive positions at eurocheque International, Europay International and MasterCard Europe. In his previous assignments, Mr Goosse’s responsibilities included franchise management, legal and regulatory affairs, stakeholder management as well as finance and administration. He also has an extensive track record in managing governance as well as European and public affairs.