Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council.
Questions:

Please give us a short summary about yourself and your history with the EPC.

My academical background includes a master's degree in economics (UiO) and public & business administration (Harvard). Over the years I have held senior management positions both at the Central Bank of Norway and DNB Bank. 

I was one of the "founding fathers" of EPC early 2002 and became the first chairman of the EPC Nominations & Governance Committee. 

Afterwards I have held many chair positions in EPC and also been part of the EPC Board most of the time it has existed. I have also on behalf of EPC co-chaired some ERPB (Euro Retail Payments Board) working grounds (WG) such as the Card and Mobile Contactless Payments WG.

You have been a member of multiple EPC working groups and task forces since the organisation’s creation in 2002, which gives you an incredibly valuable perspective on the EPC’s organisational lifetime. How has the EPC evolved since 2002?

It has been a big change since its start. In the beginning, EU regulators expected the banks to create pan-European common payments systems alongside the creation of the euro. Even though banks agreed on creating the EPC with a common aim of creating SEPA; they had very different ideas about how to achieve this and how fast. All countries had at the outset their own national solutions and experiences, and banks were very different ranging from small domestic to large, more regional and global oriented banks representing different needs. It became clear that creating SEPA was much more complex than first envisaged. So, in the first period, a lot of focus was on governance and control, and less on content building SEPA.

Despite this, and also helped by some EU regulatory interventions, EPC agreed more ambitiously to move ahead creating SEPA. And in the last years we have also seen a clear move towards multi-stakeholder involvement as part of the decision making. Today it seems to be much more aligned with the needs and challenges of the European payments industry and how to act on this. EPC has shown the ability to deliver, and as I observe it, become perhaps the most trusted entity to do so at a pan-European level.

EPC has shown the ability to deliver, and as I observe it, become perhaps the most trusted entity to do so at a pan-European level.

In your opinion, has the EPC achieved what it set out to do back in 2002?

Yes, I think EPC has become a great success on delivering exactly that. It took a long time, and it was also "helped" by regulatory interventions, but I must say that those many people contributing to the EPC over the years now can be proud of the outcome. Congratulations to EPC!

The complexity of creating common payments solutions and interoperability between so many countries has no comparison anywhere else in the world. 

What do you think the EPC will look like in another 25 years?

EPC's focus today is on payments for natural reasons. But a fast-changing market and new technologies are now changing everything. The digital and instant economy is more impactful than ever and now fuelled by AI and also heavily impacted by global - mostly non-European players. Developments towards new type of money such as stablecoins, Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), etc. are also happening in parallel to this. And we also see an evolution towards open banking where more parties are connected by APIs and where big AI players are expected to take dominating positions. Also, fraud protection will be an important factor in the next years. 

So, while EPC for many years still will have important activities and tasks helping us addressing some of these challenges, I think we will see the need for broadening the scope significantly beyond payments. In the long run, let's say in the next 10-25 years, we will see many more changes than we have had in the past 25. Payments will be more integrated into other value-chains and can't anymore be dealt with in isolation. And the digital economy fuelled by AI will be much more mature and impacting. The industry will for sure have to organise itself in new ways to efficiently deal with this, but exactly how is too early to say.

In the long run we will see many more changes than we have had in the past 25 years: Payments will be more integrated into other value-chains and can't anymore be dealt with in isolation. 

Perhaps EPC is a good role model that can be leveraged with an extended scope in the future? Time will show.

Based on your time as Co-Chair of the Mobile Payments Multi-Stakeholder Group from 2018-2025, what do you think the future of mobile payments looks like?

Mobile payments are in fact a question of the form factor. With a smartphone, we can today fulfil most of our needs far beyond payments. The wallets we today have on the phones are really the key. Here we can carry and access our bank accounts, cards, loyalty, savings, etc. The question is making the wallets usable and interoperable at the point of interaction (POI) on all terminals across Europe.

The EPC, together with many stakeholders, have already created most of the Interoperability features to achieve this. So therefore, I'm glad to see that the big wallet providers in Europe now are seeking to implement such pan-European features to create interoperability across Europe in this area.  And when it comes to the form-factor and how the future looks like, let's say in 25 years from now, everything can change, but I believe anyway that mobile will remain one of the most important form factors the next 10-15 years (guessing of course 🙂).

What is your fondest memory from your time with EPC?

I have many good memories. Creating EPC Declarations with new and increased ambitions gave us the opportunity to celebrate every time they were reached. 

Another fond memory was the ERPB working group on contactless card and mobile payments which I chaired (and co-chaired). Its aim was to increase the uptake of contactless card payments in Europe. We reached full agreement within the planned time (2014-15), and after implementations this contributed the following years to a more rapid growth of contactless card payments all over Europe, and especially and more visibly when we had the Covid outbreak in 2020.

But my fondest memory is really now afterwards to see that EPC in the end has become a great success. And all the people I've gotten to know over all these years. Congratulations to EPC!