EU commissioner Mairead McGuinness announced in a tweet the intention to legislate on Instant Payments to accelerate their adoption across the EU. The Netherlands is indeed doing well with more than 1 billion transactions to date.The rest in Europe lags grossly behind.
Instant Payments can make payments much more efficient. Which means significiant reduced social costs, while providers such as banks can still make a good margin with payments. Instant Payments pretty much covers the entire spectrum of payments and not just credit transfers. Payments in stores or online can also be easily paid via Instant Payments. But for this not only the financial parties have to adapt, retailers and billers will also have to embrace Instant Payments too.
Hopefully Mairead McGuinnes will ensure that the billers and retailers also have to take steps.
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