170 results

What is a payment scheme?

The payment schemes developed by the EPC are used by thousands of payment service providers (PSPs) in Europe to facilitate some 50 billion transactions each year.

Read more

Mobile proximity payments

If you have ever tried to pay with your smartphone in a shop, you are familiar with ‘mobile proximity payments’. The smartphone is the device used to access payment details such as card information when executing a face-to-face transaction.

Read more

SEPA goes mobile

Mobile payments are soaring in Europe. The EPC aims to facilitate the use of all SEPA instruments with a mobile while ensuring the convenience, safety, reliability and cost-effectiveness of these payments.

Read more
Insight

26 March 24

Creating a sustainable pan-European payment method through SPAA

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council.The building blocks of an open, pan-European payment method are in place: SEPA Instant Credit Transfers (SCT Inst) and open banking to turn them into a payment method. The

Read more
Insight

18 July 23

The Croatian payment landscape

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. Croatia became the 20th EU Member State to join the euro on 1 January this year. Since the end of June, the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme has been in

Read more
Insight

20 September 22

The Irish payment landscape: a digital transformation

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. We continue our series of European payment landscapes with the profile of Ireland, and we interviewed Gillian Byrne Head of Payments, at Banking & Payments Federat

Read more
Insight

26 July 21

Digital payments in Cyprus

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. Although electronic payments are gaining popularity in Cyprus, cash is still king. Nevertheless, there are clear signs that the Cypriot payments landscape is entering

Read more
Insight

28 April 21

Instant payments in Bulgaria

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. The Bulgarian payment services company BORICA AD launched BLINK, its local-currency (lev) instant payments project, at the beginning of this month. The project is comp

Read more
Insight

22 October 20

The new Retail Payments Strategy for the EU

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) initiative has been a key enabler for the integration of the retail payments market in the European Union (EU): the development of

Read more
Insight

16 November 22

European Commission's proposal for a regulation on instant payments

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. On 26 October the European Commission (EC) adopted a legislative proposal on instant payments in euro, fulfilling its commitment of the 2020 Retail Payments Strategy f

Read more
Insight

22 March 23

Integrating a more sustainable mindset to payments

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. We continue our series of interviews focusing on sustainability in the payments industry with the contribution of Stephen King, Vice President, Sustainability Solution

Read more
Insight

23 June 21

SWIFT – latest developments in cross border payments

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), one of the largest financial messaging systems in the world’s international payment network is con

Read more
Insight

07 October 20

ECB takes steps to ensure pan-European reach of instant payments

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. The European Central Bank’s (ECB) Governing Council, in line with the European Commission’s (EC) objectives, has taken an important move towards the full reach of inst

Read more
News

30 November 22

Publication of the first SPAA scheme rulebook

Today the European Payments Council (EPC) publishes the first (v1.0) SEPA Payment Account Access (SPAA) scheme rulebook. It consists of a set of rules, practices and standards that will allow the exchange of payment accounts related data and facilitates the initiation of payment transactions in the

Read more
Insight

18 September 23

What do the PSD3 and PSR mean for the payments sector?

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council or the European Commission. On June 28, 2023, the European Commission (EC) published a set of new legislative proposals, notably for a Third Payment Services Directive

Read more
Insight

28 February 23

Green payments: sustainability by design for a more viable future

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. Currently, more and more companies talk about sustainability and are starting to take action to change their products to become more environmentally friendly and creat

Read more
Insight

22 June 23

The role of payments in driving positive climate action

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. We continue our series of interviews focusing on sustainability in the payments industry with the contribution of Valerie Nowak, the Chief Product and Innovation Offic

Read more
Insight

23 February 23

How the Dutch became the frontrunners in payment transformation

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. The Netherlands has a fascinating and ever-changing payment landscape where card payments are increasing each year and are preferred over cash payments. We wanted to k

Read more
Insight

28 November 22

SCT Inst scheme – where are we now and where are we heading?

This time of the year is very special for the European Payments Council (EPC): the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) Instant credit transfer (SCT Inst) scheme is celebrating its fifth anniversary! To mark this occasion, we are sharing the most significant achievements of the SCT Inst scheme, its oppo

Read more
Insight

08 September 22

Standardising European QR-code payments

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. In June this year, the European Payments Council (EPC) published the final version of the Standardisation of Quick-Response (QR) codes for mobile initiated SEPA (inst

Read more