Visa in Europe
Visa Europe operates a European payment
system. Our products, services and innovations meet the specific
needs of our stakeholders – European payment service providers,
retailers, businesses and consumers. In particular, we’re working
with our European members to create a larger, more open, dynamic
and competitive electronic payments market in Europe.
The structure of the European payments market is changing. We’re
committed to this vision of a more open, dynamic and harmonised
payments market, and are working with our members to deliver
this.
Europe's payment providers have traditionally operated a
patchwork of distinct national payment infrastructures. However, it
is universally accepted that everyone – payment providers,
retailers, businesses and cardholders – would benefit from a more
open and consistent European payments market.
Creating an Internal Market for payments has been an objective
of the European Commission for many years. Consequently, it
introduced various initiatives over the past years such as
Regulation 2560/2001 (now Regulation 924/2009) (Charges for
cross-border payments in euro), the Financial Services Action Plan
and most recently the Payment Services Directive (PSD).
The PSD is a new legal framework for payments which came into
force on 1 November 2009 and has now been implemented in most EU
Member States.
The Directive regulates most aspects of payment services on a
European level, such as who can provide payment services,
transparency, disputes and liability.
Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA)
Following the introduction of Regulation 2560/2001 (now
Regulation 924/2009), the European banks created the European
Payments Council (EPC) with the aim of establishing a Single Euro
Payments Area (SEPA). Within SEPA consumers and businesses will be
able to make euro payments across the entire SEPA area, under
the same rules and conditions.
SEPA consists of the 27 member states of the EU, plus Iceland,
Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway and Switzerland.
The EPC has created new schemes for credit transfers and direct
debits and a framework for cards. According to the EPC’s SEPA
Roadmap, national credit transfer and direct debit schemes will
have to be replaced by the new SEPA schemes. With regard to cards
issuers, acquirers and payment systems will have to become
compliant with the SEPA Cards Framework (SCF) by the end
of 2010 at the latest.
See our online resources about the Single Euro
Payments Area (SEPA)