Reflections on AFP

Same-day ACH proposals from NACHA – what now?

The proposal from NACHA to create a same-day ACH scheme is a great step forward in meeting the needs of corporates and consumers, and bringing in new payment volumes in B2B, P2P and eCommerce into ACH.

The Executive Payments Forum debate at Sibos

Regulation is a fact of life in the payments business but the panellists in this Sibos session were united in their opinions on how best it should be tackled. And common standards and communication are at the root of their recommended approach.

A conflict of interests

In trying to please everybody, do banks risk pleasing nobody?

Let’s hear it for the payments big boys

Since the financial crisis, supervisors across the world have been trying to work out ways of dealing with banks deemed to be ‘too big to fail’. The most obvious solution (and the most simplistic) is to chop them up into manageable bits so none are too big or interconnected to be allowed to fail, because the current received wisdom seems to be that banks that are smaller and more modular are less of a risk.

On your marks for SEPA

The European Commission has today published proposals for the setting of end dates for the migration from legacy instruments to SEPA credit transfers and direct debits. It’s taken a while but there has now been a ceremonial bowing to the inevitable.

A post-Sibos perspective on SEPA

Against all the odds, SEPA remained an active topic of discussion at Sibos in Amsterdam, with a degree of clarity about the specific issues of migration not usual in the SEPA debates of late. At least the imminent setting of a SEPA migration end date(s) is anticipated - with eagerness or trepidation depending on your point of view and preparedness.

Sibos 2010: Regulation

The global financial industry is only days away from Sibos and at ACI we’re ready to go. The stand is arranged, the meetings have been set up and the events have been planned. We’ve also been giving some thought to the key themes that are being discussed throughout the week - regulation, rebuilding trust and recovery – and what they mean for the payments industry.

Uncertainty Piled on Uncertainty: The SEPA Story

The journey towards SEPA has been dogged by uncertainty from the start. End-users have not been sure what is on offer from the banks and at what price. Banks have been unsure whether and how to invest in SEPA, unsure about the impact of regulation (especially the PSD), and unsure how the financial crisis might affect their plans or lack of them. Then they have dithered about Additional Optional Services: are they a necessity or a luxury, and how should they best be deployed? And the whole market has been unsure about the adoption of the new SEPA instruments: when and by how much?

Day Three at the International Payments Summit

This year’s International Payments Summit had a clear theme running through the various debates and discussions around the event: how regulation is stifling progress….but mainly for the banks.