Working Papers present research work by both Danmarks Nationalbank’s employees and our partners. Working Papers are primarily targeted at professionals and people with an interest in central banking research as well as economics and finance in a broader sense.
E-Payment products and value-added services – moving towards an innovative European internal market
Central banks analyse issues concerning retail payments – or just payments – to be able to promote optimal means of payment. Over the years, electronic payments – i.e. payments initiated and settled electronically – have gradually replaced manual paper-based payments on the grounds of convenience, security and efficiency. Moreover, payments become more efficient when services are offered to customers both before and after payment. These so-called value-added services (VAS) are fully electronic services such as e-invoicing and e-reconciliation, which bringtime and cost-savings for all participants, as paper-based services and manual work are replaced. In this paper we prove a clear-cut distinction between electronic payment products (e-payments) and VAS. We use the so-called Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) project as a case study and discuss its current state of fatigue. Based on practical experience in Europewe conclude that the SEPA fatigue can be overcome by real-time settlement for payments and VAS supporting end-to-end (e2e)straight-through processing (STP).