EquensWordline has rolled out a pan-European system for the interoperability of domestic P2P mobile payment schemes across borders, using the Sepa Proxy Lookup (SPL) protocol.
The SPL allows the exchange of the data necessary to initiate P2P mobile payments by linking a mobile telephone number to an IBAN. The strategy is aimed at overcoming a fragmented scenario characterised by multiple incompatible standards by providing a unified mechanism for P2P relay.
EquensWorldline was selected as the preferred SPL service provider by the Mobile Proxy Forum, a working group initiated at the request of the Euro Retail Payments Board (ERPB), to achieve pan-European interoperability for P2P mobile payments.
The vendor's SPL service acts as an intelligent routing network among connected P2P payment providers and forgoes the creation of an additional central IBAN database.
EquensWorldline says the system is ready to be used, and the first provider has already integrated the service into its mobile payment solution.
Michael Steinbach, CEO of equensWorldline, sees the SPL service as an important component in the development of a pan-European payment ecosystem. “Even with Sepa, we still see a fragmentation of the P2P payment solutions market in Europe. Each country has or is developing its own domestic solutions. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly important to create a user-friendly pan-European payment ecosystem, in which cross-border payments are just as smooth as domestic payments.”
He says the service has been designed to allow future extensions, like the support of additional aliases such as e-mail addresses, the support of merchant payments (B2C), and the introduction of value-added services such as the transfer of e-receipts in the case of consumer purchases.