Written by Rachel Fletcher
Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), has said that it "is now time" for more cashless cross-border payments across Europe.
People should be able to make cashless payments throughout the euro area from a single account under the same conditions set for cash transactions, he stated.
Mr Trichet's comments came in a foreword for a recent ECB publication, The Single European Payments Area (SEPA) - an integrated retail payment market.
The document includes an overview of SEPA, as well as various other banking industry initiatives and timeframes for these schemes.
It assesses the implications for businesses, consumers, merchants, banks and infrastructure providers.
SEPA, the Eurosystem and the relationships between them are also analysed in some detal.
For SEPA to work, changes to the whole banking industry and the habits of European consumers are necessary, according to the ECB president.
