A good article on Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) which discusses roles and positions of Commission, banks, ACH's, ECB and identifies winners and losers. Author Bob McDowall concludes:
It is estimated that 98 per cent of all payments are domestic. If that is the case—if only 2 per cent of payments are cross-border—what is all the bother about SEPA anyway?. The focus then has to be on banks exploiting the opportunities this brings as much as the loss of margin it incurs. The lost revenues are in part the costs of losing historical protectionism. As in all deregulated markets, there are always some losers.
