The future in payment transactions in SEPA-area

Since the beginning of 2008, a unified Euro payment transaction space was implemented with SEPA, the single euro payment area. Thanks to SEPA, there is no longer a differentiation between national and cross-border payments.  This enables making euro payments with consistent payment instruments. Although SEPA especially poses operative questions, innovative traders and service provider think ahead of the introduction stage:  Which consequences does SEPA have for the German direct debit procedures? In which direction will the value chain change – and which actors will dominate the future market? How will the trade react to these changes?

Due to these various questions, the EHI retail dealt with the future developments of the European payment transactions in the context of a scenario project. Therefore a heterogeneous scenario team was composed, consisting of commercial enterprises as Metro, Plus, Obi and Dm as well as of leading service provider as MasterCard, Visa and easycash. The scenario development was supported and methodical accompanied by the ScMI, which has already collaborated with EHI about the future of the trade communication.

On the 6th of May, the results of this project were presented to almost 500 participants of the EHI cards congress– which is the biggest event in payment media in Europe. Marco Atzberger (EHI Retail Institute), Detlev Anders (Strauss Innovation) and Katrin Schweisfurth (dm-drogerie market GmbH&Co.KG) forged a bridge from bank-driven to trade-driven future images and did not disregard rather unlikely developments as a return to cash payments. Dr. Alexander Fink from the ScMI AG complemented the discussion with scenarios and a ‘map of the future’ – in which eight future images were linked to each other.

The results will be published in detail in a study of the EHI institute.