EBA Clearing Looking for Banks to Test its Internet Payment
- EBA Clearing has received favourable opinion about its pan-European B2B e-payment service proposal MyBank, which has been under consultation this summer. Mainly known for clearing in all Europe, EBA Clearing designed for banks an instrument dedicated to the e-commerce. This instrument redirects the Internet user to its banking portal. As is the case with Dutch scheme iDEAL, the customer clicks on the “MyBank” button when choosing his payment method. He then authenticates with his financial institution and originates a real-time credit transfer to the merchant website. MyBank also proposes post-delivery payment.
- The concept has been approved by thirty banks and includes suggestions received from other pan-European players: consumers, e commerce federations, integrators and e-PSPs. It first relies on SCT and SDD (one-off or recurring) instruments. Mobile payments (through using Smartphones or tablets) and non-euro currencies will be considered later.
- EBA Clearing is now enrolling pilot banks to test this service starting May 2012 for a production phase in summer 2012.
- EBA Clearing belongs to the European banks and operates retail clearing schemes in euros at a pan-European level (PEACH). It has been requested to design and run a bank-owned scheme, specialised in e-commerce payments. In parallel, the EPC has started to standardise one such payment instrument based on Dutch iDEAL, created in 2005.
- All these solutions aim at allowing banks to recapture the payment act with a more suited medium than the bank card. This means of payment is still favoured by Internet users worldwide but induces high risks of fraud. Alternatives to cards (3D-Secure, OTPs, virtual or prepaid cards, etc.) tend to impair its two primary assets: ease of use and payment fluidity. The aim of OBeP solution is to secure payment operations while avoiding disintermediation by non-banking facilitators (such as PayPal, Ukash, Moneybooker, etc.), which operate between the consumer and banking schemes (card, direct debit,etc.).
- EBA has SEPA-wide coverage for clearing (32 countries): it is ideally positioned to provide banks with a standard solution relying on SEPA instruments. It will boost innovating offer, since it includes an SDD-based payment method (e.g. for subscriptions). The question is: will its operational costs allow EBA Clearing to be competitive? Due to insufficient volumes brought to SEPA clearing, it has not yet managed to be as competitive as its rival counterparts, the national payment clearing mechanisms (e.g..: STET’s CORE in France).