Visa Europe applauds the European Parliament's plenary vote on the Payment Services Directive
BRUSSELS, 24 April 2007
At today's plenary session in Strasbourg, the European Parliament voted on the Payment Services Directive (PSD), the legal framework underpinning the initiative to create a Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). In March the Council reached agreement on a compromise text and the Parliament's vote today means that the directive can now be adopted swiftly.
Peter Ayliffe, president and CEO of Visa Europe, said: "I congratulate the European Parliament on today's vote, which demonstrates that EU legislators strongly support the payment industry's SEPA project. The Payment Services Directive is the foundation of SEPA - without it, the industry would have had difficulties with meeting its 2010 target."
Commenting on the final text, Peter Ayliffe added: "As a strong believer in the benefits a truly internal market in payments would bring, I would have hoped for a greater level of harmonisation. However, I am pleased that an agreement was found and we can now continue our work towards making SEPA a reality. The complex nature of directive will mean that the next big challenge will be the implementation in the 27 Member States."
On the Single Euro Payments Area, Peter Ayliffe added: "Visa Europe's commitment to SEPA is not just lip service. From 1 January 2007, one year ahead of the deadline, we have been fully compliant with the SEPA requirements for cards. Our focus is now to help our member banks and make SEPA a reality for all European consumers and businesses."
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Notes to the editor
About Visa Europe:
In Europe, there are nearly 321 million Visa debit, credit and commercial cards. In the 12 months ending September 2006, those cards were used to make purchases and cash withdrawals to the value of over €1.2 trillion. For every €9 spent in Europe today, €1 is spent on a Visa card.
Visa Europe is a membership association - an organisation owned and operated by its 4,500 European member banks. As a dedicated European organisation it is able to respond quickly to the specific market needs of European banks and their customers - cardholders and retailers, and to meet the European Commission's objective to create a true internal market for payments. Visa Europe is a part owner of Visa International, the organisation that ensures global interoperability of products as well as management of the Visa brand.
In October 2006, Visa announced that it intends to restructure its entire worldwide organisation except Europe in order to create a new public global corporation called Visa Inc. As a part of this restructuring, Visa Europe will remain a membership association with an exclusive, irrevocable and perpetual license in Europe.
Globally Visa is one of the world's leading payment brands and has unsurpassed acceptance at approximately 24 million acceptance locations including one million ATMs.
Contact details:
Simon Kleine
Visa Europe
Tel: +44 (0)20 7795 5311
E-mail: kleines@visa.com
Paul Ravenscroft
Visa Europe
Tel: +44 (0)20 7795 5390
E-mail: ravenscp@visa.com
Julia Staunig
GPlus Europe
Tel: +32 (0)2 282 96 35
E-mail: juliastaunig@gpluseurope.com
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