SEPA testing high on the agenda

With SIA-SSB and EBA Clearing putting the final touches on the SEPA Services for STEP2 over the next month, banks are gearing up to begin testing credit transfers from July, with testing windows for direct debits coming later in the year.

Giorgio Ferrero, Chairman of EBA CLEARING, says 90 banks have already signed up for Sepa credit transfer testing during one of the proposed three windows this year.

Besides more detail on testing, the keynotes, panel sessions and debate at EBAday should also shed more light on how the EBA's pan-European clearing house (PE-ACH) will interact with other domestic (and increasingly regional) ACH operators. If I was going to create a buzzword bingo game for this event, I would probably include the term 'co-opetition'.

We can also expect much discussion - particularly about governance issues - of EBA Clearing's shared platform concept, which aims to allow communities of banks to use the platform for intra-community domestic payments.