The Euro Banking Association and Finextra are calling for community input on the agenda for EBAday 2009 in Vienna, Europe's premiere payments exhibition and conference.
RZB CEO Walter Rothensteiner, who will give the opening address on "The value of transaction banking in challenging times", is among a top line-up of leading European bankers to have already confirmed their participation in the conference programme, which runs over 30 June and 1 July. Planned break-out sessions are covering topics including:
- A corporate perspective on payments
- Payment market insights into Central and Eastern Europe
- Key technology drivers in transaction banking
- Managing liquidity and risk in high-value payment systems
- Electronic Invoicing: understanding the drivers
We are keen to get community input on these topics and more (working agenda here), and invite bankers, corporate treasurers, and infrastructure and service providers to provide their suggestions and feedback in the EBAday community.
Daniel Szmukler at the Euro Banking Association (EBA) thinks that banks should not lose sight of the medium-term outlook for the payments industry during the current financial turmoil. The EBA believes that European solutions will be key in the future and that they will contribute in an essential manner towards shaping the post-crisis landscape, even if today many remedies are formulated nationally.
The EBA points to the role it played in the mid-eighties when practical solutions to the difficulties in the European monetary landscape had to be found, or in the mid-nineties, when the momentum for a monetary union was needed. Szmukler believes EBA member banks need to demonstrate once more that they are a grouping of like-minded institutions capable of shaping the payments business. We look forward to hearing your ideas on ways and means to help progress the payments business in Europe.
To provide some food for thought, you can watch a video interview Finextra did this week with Günther Gall, head of the transaction services department at RZB, about industry consolidation and payments outsourcing, product innovation, the Payments Services Directives and the challenges and opportunities of operating in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).