There is no longer a differentiation between national and cross-border payments, thanks to SEPA.  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 German direct debit procedures? In which direction will the value chain change – and which actors will dominate the future market? How actively will the trade react to these changes?

Due to these occurring questions, the EHI retail dealt with the future development of the European payment transactions by conducting 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 AG, who has already worked together with EHI in a project about the future of trade communication.

On the 6th of May, the results of this project were presented to about 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 the developed scenarios and a ‘map of the future’ – in which eight future images were linked to each other. These results will be published in detail within a study of the EHI institute.