Towards interoperability for European payment infrastructures

Abstract

This paper describes the EU Commission Communication on interoperability of public services, adopted in December 2010, and its possible implementation by financial market infrastructures. The Commission defined ambitious objectives and their achievement requires close collaboration between regulators and markets in order to streamline cross-border processes, to establish trusted information exchange, and to create interoperable infrastructures and systems. It is a cornerstone, and the implementation of the EU Commission recommendations by payment systems could help cultivate a European ecosystem with citizens familiar with interoperability and financial market infrastructures ready to collaborate, and common frameworks, tools and services facilitating the establishment of European financial services. The paper explains the relevance of the Communication for European financial market infrastructures and analyses how they could benefit from the application of the most relevant recommendations of the EU Commission for the financial sector. The paper draws conclusions on the possible involvement of European payment systems overseers to provide financial market infrastructures and their providers with proper incentives for interoperability.