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Dan Anghelescu, BIS Operations Manager, took over the stage atthe Romanian SWIFT User Group Meeting, which gatheredrepresentatives of SWIFT – EMEA area and Romanian SWIFT users -banks that are members of the Romanian BanksAssociation.
After a several years experience, all SWIFT users have the same opinion: no matter the geo-political conditions, stock fluctuations or times authorities, no matter if we come out of the crisis or not, the moment SWIFT announces upgrades and deadlines for accomplishing these, each SWIFT user is bound to act accordingly.
Why should we think about these unpleasant things, now, when summer of 2010 is just beginning and December 2011/March 2012 seem so far away?Because we can’t even think of leaving SWIFTNet interfaces upgrade to be done in the last 3 months of the migration window (you never know the barriers that may occur and to what extent could they obstruct ongoing activities within the SWIFT’s deadline) and we’ll do our best to go through it within 2011.
Even so, why should we talk about these things now?
Because it might be too late at the beginning of 2011.
Because each of the two announced upgrades involves additional costs (a bigger or smaller amount) and, at the beginning of 2011, it will be too late to add these in the budget.
Wise people prepare themselves since summer for the coming winter (a Romanian saying).
…we have fresh news on Finextra: To us it sounds strange that the direct beneficiaries of the SEPA project (whose costs are expected to decrease and be the same in the entire EURO area and in the 31 adhering countries to the SEPA regulation) can’t conceive a business case in the absence of a deadline….. Tough banks everywhere? Any ‘pro’ or ‘con’ opinions?
Sepa migration deadlines: dates floated but no decision
With Sepa-compliant transaction volumes still weak, Harcus Cooper of Barclays is forecasting the introduction of phased end-dates for mandatory conversion to the new EU-wide payment instruments, with credit transfers expected to get the nod in 2013 and direct debits by 2015.
The SCT scheme was introduced in early 2008, yet, according to ECB figures, two years later it accounted for just 7.5% of credit transfers in the Euro area. SDD take-up has been equally sluggish – at the recent EBAday it was noted that a paltry 200 SDD transactions per day, globally, go through EBA Clearing.
Cooper, Barclays’ senior product manager on Sepa, was speaking at a payments event organised by Experian in London today. He noted that many corporates are having trouble justifying the business case for Sepa in the absence of a firm migration deadline away from legacy infrastructure.
The Experian event takes place just a week after the European Commission and European Central Bank hosted the first meeting of the Sepa Council, a new body created to guide the future development of the project which has been dogged with criticism.
The meeting is understood to have seen broad consensus reached that January 2013 would be a likely end date for credit transfers with direct debits following in 2015.
It has long been acknowledged that deadlines are necessary. Last March ECB executive board member Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell warned: “We need a migration end date from which on onward only the European payment instruments will exist. We all know that it is inefficient and costly if two schemes continue to run in parallel for a prolonged period of time”.
After talks with stakeholders last year saw widespread support for deadlines, the move appeared to gain impetus, with the EC initiating talks with member states in November yet final dates have still not been set.
Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, ECB executive board member, says the Council will not displace the bank-backed coordinating body, the EPC.”We need to recognize the importance of user involvement for the success of Sepa,” she says. “The Sepa Council aims at bringing together, at the highest level, the demand and supply sides of the European payments market, without, however, replacing any of the existing bodies, such as the European Payments Council.”
