Stakeholder Management and Communication

Stakeholder Management and Communication are two areas where the SEPA programme has been particularly weak. The payment schemes were not developed "by banks in close dialogue with customers" as the EPC claims; one of the main complaints of the other stakeholders is that the EPC developed the schemes in isolation from the users; users were then allowed to make suggestions for improvement, but they were not co-developers. Secondly the EPC has lost the ear of the European Commission, a key stakeholder, as evidenced by the EC's loss of confidence in the EPC to develop payment standards. Issuing a press release like this containing criticism of a key stakeholder is a communications action ranking alongside Gordon Ramsay's interviews with the tabloid press exposing his acrimonious rift with his father-in-law, which he later described as an attempt to build bridges with his mother-in-law. Intended to get stakeholders onside, but unlikely to.