Survey reveals that SEPA and the PSD are progressing but liquidity risk needs addressing
Research finds liquidity risk is a major potential exposure for the future and calls for more automation
The Financial Services Club and Logica revealed the results of their annual research into the state of play in European Payments and the progress of the implementation of the Payment Services Directive (PSD) and Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).
The report surveyed over 360 global bankers, consultants and technologists and covered five key areas. These included the development of the European Union, the impact of the PSD and SEPA, bank-to-corporate relationships, and liquidity risk.
The survey revealed that two-thirds of banking professionals agree that an integrated payments market is either critical or very important to Europe’s future. When it comes to the PSD, 50% of respondents think it has been successful – a 15% increase from 2010. For SEPA, when asked the same question the results are not as positive – only 30% think it has been a success. Banks are also slightly more optimistic on the progress of SEPA - with 70% believing that the SEPA vision will be realised by 2017 compared to 68% last year.
A key issue highlighted by the survey is concern over liquidity risk. While 73% of banks surveyed know their financial exposure in the case of a liquidity event, only 39% were able to do this through the right technology of which only 17% can do this in real time.
Seven out of ten respondents felt that SEPA was having a positive impact on corporate-to-bank payments processing and 81% found that technology solutions met their requirements, although the majority noted that these developments could be improved.
Research background
The survey ran during between July and August 2011, and was completed by 360 participants across 44 countries. The largest single group of participants was from the banks with over a third of the respondents from this constituency. Consultants and technology providers are the next largest groups, also representing over a third of the votes. Almost three out of ten participants (27%) describe themselves as “middle management”, whilst 40% were senior management or C-level and one in four (26%) were “consultants” or “advisors”. The full report is available upon request.
Logica and the FS Club will be hosting a free webinar on GT News on 12 September at 3pm BST / 4pm CEST / 10am EDT.
To register, please visit: http://bit.ly/rjN4h9
Download Summary Document for a free copy of the research.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
