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Andrew - It is quite understandable when you look at the state of the legacy infrastructure of banks like HSBC. This approach -also referred to as 'speedboating' by some - will become increasingly common amongst the large, legacy banks. You are right, they could invest in  other challengers but that would most likely not give them enough influence over the functionality and more importantly, more control over customer migration. With regard to Open Banking/PSD2, I'm afraid there is still plenty of room for improvement (just look at rhe debate with the banks and CMA9 in the UK!). 

As a business and retail customer of HSBCs, I am now left wondering how long will it really be before I can jump aboard their new Sunseeker because I now know that they are not  going to invest in their existing platform.

Sounds great useful but does it reconcile my receipts too??

Thanks Hakim. You are correct in highlighting the poor take up of the PAYM Service; a significant part of this can be attributed to the poor marketing and dependence on mostly clunky, mobile banking platforms. That said, the industry now has a database which can be enhanced and used for other purposes. One obvious use case would be to mandate its use prior to the origination of Faster Payments (to check the beneficiary details prior to processing), thereby reducing misdirected payments.

It's a bold call to make predictions in payments nine years ahead. Undoubtedly, the volume of electronic payments will increase significantly, however, I don't agree with the Debit Card estimates. What about the impact of bank overlay services such as ZAPP's 'pay-by-bank'? A similar service in the Netherlands, called 'iDeal' now processes approximately 60% of all online payments compared with 4% via Debit Cards. Whether it is ZAPP or another provider, such services are going to dominate the European payments landscape as clearers and payment service providers convert to real-time processing.

Couldn't agree more Alexander. I wish investors would focus on investing in the truly disruptive mobile payment solutions that aren't based around 60-year old technology.

Seriously, how can the re-launch of a service that is over sixty years old be considered to be progress worthy of an announcement? 

This is a bit rich coming from the ECB! Sure there are risks associated with these new, virtual currencies but in aggregate, no more risk than from the multitude of Central Banks that seem intent on destroying the real value of the world's main currencies through a stealth tax otherwise known as inflation. The alternatives can't arrive quick enough! Let's just hope that that the same Central Banks don't regulate them out of existence in order to protect their own money printing schemes.