Verbesserungen des grenzüberschreitenden Zahlungsverkehrs im Euro-Währungsgebiet

A common means of payment for the European Union has almost been achieved, but has not yet been followed by a 'single payment area'. Cross-border wholesale payments can now be processed as cheaply and as quickly as domestic ones, yet retail transactions are still hampered by inefficient procedures, due partly to the lack of a common and homogenous infrastructure platform and a lack of interoperability between national payment systems. In addition to the actions taken at EU level, however, financial institutions themselves need to take urgent action to reduce costs and the time needed to finalise payments and to introduce already-existing international standards in order to increase the straight-through processing of cross-border payments.