Press Release: Payment systems: Commission hosts Round Table to tackle the problems of cross-border payments

Preview of a European Commission hosted Round Table in Brussels on 9 November 2000 to take stock of progress towards the creation of a single payment area and tackle the problems associated with cross-border payments.
Payments are the 'oil in the wheels of the Internal Market' and it is of major importance that those wheels run smoothly and safely between Member States. In a Single Market, and especially within the euro-zone, domestic and cross-border retail payments should be assimilated as much as possible. Work is underway towards a Single Payments Area in which citizens and businesses can make cross-border credit transfers as easily as they can within their own countries and with costs which are not significantly higher. Payment cards, including electronic purses, should become more and more 'interoperable', allowing for their use in the entire EU. A further number of steps is taken to reach the objective of developing secure payment systems. In particular, legal measures are put in place in order to eliminate 'systemic risks' in settlement systems.