[Dave Birch] The eight of the lunchtime round tables in the Innovation in Payment series will be held at Waterman's Hall, 16-18 St. Mary at Hill, London EC3R 8EF from 12.30pm-2.15pm on 11th February 2009. Sandra Alzetta from Visa Europe, Conny Dorrestijn from Clear2Pay and Francesco Burelli from Deloitte will be on the panel and we will be discussing whether Europe is moving to a single payments market or whether sub-regional and national markets are diverging: Download (94K).
We began the fellowship programme by taking a look at the overall state of the European payments marketplace, and that provided a great starting point. But now it’s time to ask whether that is the right picture of the marketplace of the future. Despite SEPA and so forth, national payment markets vary greatly in size and shape. In Sweden, people withdraw cash from ATMs to spend in shops, but in Denmark they use debit cards. In Germany, they still buy from the web using cash on delivery, in the UK this is unheard of. In Italy, prepaid cards are a mass market, in Turkey they like instalment cards. In France they still use cheques, but in Finland they are non-existent. In the UK, FPS is up and running but in Greece there’s no such thing. In the Netherlands, the bank IDEAL scheme is popular for online payments, there’s nothing like it elsewhere. With new products, services and technologies coming along, what reasons are there to expect convergence or divergence.
With a pan-European company such as IKEA having to use 18 different acquirers and seven different types of terminals (each with different software), I don’t think we’re being unreasonable in asking is there going to be a European payment market, a group of subregional markets or a collection of national markets?
Three experts will share some pan-European perspectives:
- Sandra Alzetta is Senior Vice President for Innovation, New Product & Channel Development at Visa Europe and the corporate sponsor of this programme.
- Conny Dorrestijn of Clear2Pay has spent many years at the intersection of global financial services and new technology, recently focusing on the harmonisation of payment schemes.
- Francesco Burelli, Director in the Payments Team of Deloitte LLP advises on payments businesses all over Europe.
You might never get the opportunity to question them on a panel together again, so please do come along and help us to understand the future relationship between payments and banking by tapping into their collective experience, perspective and knowledge. Attendance is free, but space is limited. So if you or a colleague would like to join us, please let us know as soon as possible by e-mailing sophie (at) csfi.org.uk or by phoning the CSFI on +44 (20) 7493 0173 as soon as possible.
Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time.
Author W. Somerset Maugham (1943).
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