The EPC appointed PwC Italy as Economic Consultant for the SPAA scheme

The EPC appointed PwC Italy as Economic Consultant for the SPAA scheme

04 August 22

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As part of the development of the SEPA Payment Account Access (SPAA) scheme, the European Payments Council (EPC) selected PricewaterhouseCoopers Business Services S.r.l. (‘PwC Italy’) as Economic Consultant. 

In June 2021 the Euro Retail Payments Board (ERPB) invited the EPC to take up the role of scheme manager for the development of a SEPA API Access scheme (afterwards renamed SEPA Payment Account Access (SPAA) scheme) related to payment accounts, in line with the requirements defined in the June 2021 report of the ERPB Working Group on a SEPA API Access scheme.

The work on a SPAA scheme is expected to result in new client experiences accompanied by new additional revenue streams, and allowing for a fair distribution of value and risk between actors by enabling ‘premium’ payment services beyond PSD2, such as ‘premium’ one-off payments, IBAN validation, future dated payments, etc. For this purpose, the ERPB report has defined a general framework for business conditions for ‘premium’ assets and API services, allowing for the remuneration of at least two elements within a SPAA scheme, notably the ‘premium’ assets exposed by the Asset Holder and the use of the SPAA ‘premium’ API service itself, as provided by the Asset Holder. In March the EPC launched a public Request for Proposal (RFP) to find an external Economic Consultant to which it would outsource i) the definition of the detailed cost calculation methodology for the remuneration model, ii) the anonymised and aggregated collection of relevant data from the market on the basis of the methodology and iii) the compilation of a set of ‘default’ fees for ‘premium’ assets and API exposure and consumption, in line with the ERPB’s Report requirements.

PwC Italy has been selected as independent Economic Consultant and officially mandated by the EPC to produce the abovementioned business conditions, on the basis of an objective methodology and an aggregated and anonymised data collection process.

PwC Italy will in the course of this summer approach a number of Asset Holders to collect such data. The EPC urges these Asset Holders to participate in this anonymous cost survey in order to enable PwC Italy to build a viable and balanced business model which will be a key component for the success of the SPAA scheme.
 



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