In a recent report entitled SEPA: Banks are building it, but will customers come?, Celent analyst Enrico Camarinelli writes that the level of Sepa attention by corporate users is “very little, almost nonexistent.” He adds that the mandatory requirements of IFRS and Sarbanes-Oxley have put Sepa low on the corporate “to-do list.”

Yet the crucial role corporates – or at least their treasury departments – will play in Sepa’s future is becoming increasingly obvious, as underlined by the French treasurers’ recent initiative to launch a European working group to look into value-added Sepa instruments.

But beyond the payment instruments themselves are the Sepa-related services to be provided by the banking community. And there again, conflicting interests are likely to surface. Camarinelli warns that each major constituent group – consumers; corporations; public sector; utilities – will have its own set of desired features.

The analyst reckons that banks should avoid positioning Sepa as a technology-based project or as a software issue, keeping IT impact to a minimum, or risk making Sepa a low priority for corporates. “Investments in corporate information technology have been significant [...] and additional investments with undefined ROI are not welcome,” he writes, expecting banks “to develop their Additional Optional Services offering through Web services.”

Celent also expects Sepa to “surface on corporate executives’ agendas once its tight connection with the financial supply chain becomes evident.” Hence the importance – for banks – of connecting electronic invoicing concepts with Sepa standards and payment issues, in order to generate corporate interest.

Filed under: Payments, regulation, Technology