BRUSSELS -(Dow Jones)- The European Commission is considering setting a formal deadline for banks to migrate their payments systems to a single European payments platform, concerned by the lack of take-up by the payments industry, it said Monday.
The commission said a deadline would give "a strong incentive" for both industry and users to speed up migration to a payments system whereby settling bills and transferring money should be as easy across European borders as it is within a single country.
The project, known as Single Euro Payments Area, or SEPA, is a voluntary exercise by the banking and finance industry to remove national borders from their payments systems. However, the slow pace of progress worries the commission, convinced that a speedier approach would bring many efficiency benefits.
Before deciding whether it should formally intervene in the process, the commission is asking for stakeholder feedback to help it "identify whether there is a need for action in this respect and at which level," the commission said.
The deadline the commission is considering setting would concern both credit transfers and direct debits, the commission said.
-By Peppi Kiviniemi, Dow Jones Newswires; +3227411483; peppi.kiviniemi@dowjones.com