The European retail payments landscape is rapidly changing. The introduction of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), European infrastructures, the harmonization of European and national payments legislation, have led and still lead to structural reforms of national payment markets. Moreover, the 24 hours per day economy has changed  consumer demands. Together with technological developments this has  paved the way for many new retail payment innovations. These innovations have the potential to produce social benefits, however, they may also introduce new risks.

All these changes will have a definite impact on the future structure of the European banking industry and on the role, tasks and activities of central banks and other financial authorities that seek to maintain safe and efficient payment markets. This holds even more for those countries which expect to join the EU in the future. The changes in the retail payments landscape will also have a great impact on firms, consumers, governments, and other financial authorities.

This workshop offered an overview of the main developments in the field of Retail Payment Systems in Europe and is specially also of interest for ministries of finance and economics. The nature of the workshop is set in an interactive way.

What was covered

During the workshop following topics were discussed:

• Central banks and the dynamic world of retail payment systems;
• SEPA and what next?;
• Retail payment innovations and trends;
• Cybercrime & cyberresilience;
• Oversight on retail payments;
• Legislation of retail payments in practice;
• Research in  retail payments;
• A strategy for financial inclusion
• Stakeholder involvement.

How did participants benefit

After the workshop, participants have a clear overview of the main developments in the area of retail payments, how they might affect the national and European payments landscape and what the main challenges are for central banks, governments and other financial authorities. Moreover, the workshop provided a forum for exchanging ideas and experiences among different countries and different institutions.

Who was it for

The seminar was designed for experts and policymakers from central banks, working on the development of financial infrastructure and payments and settlement systems, as well as experts from ministries of finance and economic affairs who are involved in financial regulation.

Faculty

Michiel van Doeveren, Senior Policy Advisor, Retail Payments Policy Department, De Nederlandsche Bank

Michiel is a senior-policy advisor at the de Nederlandsche Bank (DNB).  He has been working at DNB since 1988, after he graduated economics at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam and worked at Delft Technological University. At the DNB, Michiel had worked as a country economist at the Export Credit and Import Guarantee department was a member of the Paris Club for debt negotiations, before joining the Cash and Payments Systems division in 1995.

Michiel fulfilled a lot of responsibilities around the national introduction of the euro and the millennium changeover. He is one of the architects of DNB for building a framework to promote a sound business continuity policy and business continuity management. Michiel was also one of the project managers in the change-over to SEPA in the Netherlands. He was specially involved in the migration to the SEPA standards and products for banks, firms, the government and consumers.

Michiel is now working as secretary for European affairs of the Dutch National Forum on the Payment System. This consultative national platform has the task on ensuring that the Netherlands’ payment system proceeds as social efficient, secure, innovative, reachable & accessible, as possible. He is participating in the work of the Euro retail Payments Board and active in the field of technical cooperation with other countries.

Judith Looman, Policy Advisor, Retail Payments Policy Department, De Nederlandsche Bank

Judith Looman studied International Financial Economics at the University of Amsterdam. She started working  at the Dutch Central Bank in the Payments Policy Department,in 2005. She is secretary of the working group Efficiency and European Affairs of the National Forum on the Payment System and a member of the Payments Policy Working Group of the ECB. Furthermore she participates in a small CPMI group reviewing the Red Book statistics, is active in the field of technical cooperation with other countries and participated in the ERPB working group on contactless proximity payments.

Anja Rijavec Uršej, Deputy Director, Payment and Settlement System Department, Bank of Slovenia

Anja graduated in 2007 at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana. After graduation, she worked as a legal expert in a real-estate company and completed a traineeship at the Ljubljana High Court. From 2009 to 2013, she worked at the Ministry of Finance in Financial System Department, where she was at first responsible for different tasks regarding banking and payments and a head of a Unit for Banking, Insurance and Payment transactions from 2012 to 2013. She has been working in Banka Slovenije since 2013, at first as a Senior Inspector, responsible for supervision of non-bank payment service providers, e-money institutions and currency exchange operators. From 2015 to 2016 she was a head of Payment Systems and Services Unit. She has been a deputy director since December 2016.

Andreja Birsa, Senior Analyst, Payment and Settlement Systems Department, Bank of Slovenia

Andreja graduated in 2008 at the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana (for graduation thesis she received Prešeren Award from the faculty) and she gained the title Master of Science in 2014. She has been working at the Bank of Slovenia since 2009 in Payment and Settlement Systems Department. She works on different tasks regarding policy issues in the field of retail payments. She represents the Bank of Slovenia in different working groups that work under the aegis of the Bank Association of Slovenia and in Policy Working Group at the ESCB level. She also holds presentations regarding retail payments at different seminars, organized by the Bank of Slovenia, Bank Association of Slovenia and Center of Excellence of Finance.

Jure Kovačič, Analyst, Payment and Settlement Systems Department, Bank of Slovenia

Jure has been working at the Bank of Slovenia since 2008. He is responsible for various tasks on the field of central bank function of oversight of payment systems. As a representative of the Bank of Slovenia, he is a member of the Payment and Securities Working Group at the ESCB level and of the European Forum for the Security of Retail Payments (SecuRe Pay). With the aim to exchange knowledge and experiences on the field of payment systems oversight, he holds presentations at the seminars organized by the Bank of Slovenia and the Bank Association of Slovenia. He also cooperates in the technical assistance to the central banks of South East Europe with regard to establishment and performance of payment systems oversight function.

Emilija Nacevska, Advisor to the Governor for the Payment Systems and EU, National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia

Yasmina Safy, Head of Markets and Operations Unit, International Banking and Finance Institute (IBFI), Banque de France

Yasmina graduated in electrical engineering in Lyon (Institut National des Sciences Appliquées). After two years as a microchip software programmer, she joined a large French bank and specialized in electronic payments where she also acted for 12 years as representative within French, European and International organizations in the means of payment area such as ISO, ECBS, EBA CLEARING and EPC. In 2004, she joined EBA CLEARING as a project manager of the Italian credit transfers migration to the European platform STEP2 and acted as a relationship manager for all services (retail and high value payment services, payment initiation services). In 2012, she joined the Interbank Settlement Division of the Banque de France in charge of TARGET2 operations (daily monitoring, crisis management, relations with French banks and back-offices of the Banque de France) and is now in charge of the Markets and Operations Unit at the IBFI of the Banque de France.

Partners

This learning initiative was supported by: