Payments professionals from banks across Europe are gathering in Edinburgh this week for EBAday, hosted by the Euro Banking Association and Finextra. We're liveblogging events here.
15.50: Nymphiuson wraps up. He can't tell us where we'll be for EBAday 2013 but drops some hints: it will be on the continent, the country starts with a 'g' and has an 'r' and 'e'.
Mmm...we'll see you next year, wherever it may be.
15.46: James Barclay, Vincent Brennan, Christian Westerhaus have joined Hansjörg Nymphius to try and sum up the conference and it's theme of innovation through collaboration.
Brennan says banks are not traditionally comfortable with collaboration - they're used to owning their big house [IT infrastructure] but need to consider renting small flats sometimes for some things.
Nymphius: you could argue that Sepa is an old subject but it still keeps cropping up and there's still lots of work to do. Harmonisation is vital if we - and our customers - are to feel the benefits of Sepa - we can't have a fragmented situation where we are all in our little fiefdoms.
The 'customer is king' mantra has been a theme running through the event and Westerhaus agrees that innovation comes from the customers' demand.
15.03: That's it for this stream, we now head off to the closing moderators' round table.
14.58: Dunning: Lot of dirty data coming in from corporates. We studied data from Dutch supermarket - we found more errors than invoices! So, you need to make sure the banks and corporates work in harmony to make sure data is right.
Audience member says Sepa is 12 years in the making. Think how much the world has changed in that time. In 12 years will it be banks at EBAday or more tech firms providing payment services. He's not convinced that trust is the ace card that banks think it is. Asks how many in the room trust their bank - most put their hands up (they are bankers though!)
Barclay thinks that this underestimates the scale of the Sepa project. It's a big deal and a big change.
We're back on the 140 characters for remittance issue. Mulhern risks inciting envy by reminding us that in the US they've recently made it 1000 characters. This came from corporates desire.
14.47: Over at the innovation session:
14.35: Wandhofer says a big reason for gathering data is regulatory requirements but customers who are becoming more used to having access to data are also increasingly demanding it from their banks.
Comment from the floor: I recently received a remittance payment into my account. Called bank and they couldn't tell me who sent it, the exchange rate etc etc. Before banks mess around looking at my Facebook page to discover I like opera can they please try to sort out the important data.
This really strikes a chord and gets a round of applause!
14.27 Meanwhile, at the innovation panel:
14.24: We're in the closing straight, with a session on 'understanding the real value of payments data. JP Morgan's James Barclay is joined by Ruth Wandhofer from Citi GTS, Martin Coen from Dovetail, Ian Dunning from RefData srl, Gareth Lodge from Celent and Ray Mulhern from The Clearing House. Barclay says we may not have the 'fantastic four' but panalists are the 'famous five'.
Coen strikes a note of caution on the rush to use data from social media - it's tempting to mine but banking/payments isn't like other industries because accuracy is so vital.
Lodge on 'big data': IBM says 90% of all data was created in the last two years. Shows that we have too much data already, what can you do with it all? The larger the bank and the more European banks are looking at long-term strategic use of data. Some smaller ones in other parts of the world are more tactical.
Barclay asks audience how many of you already have to much data - every hand goes up.
12.54: My colleague Debi Bell has been busy putting together a video round-up of yesterday's news:
12.50: Sitting in on the Sepa migration session meant I missed the e-invoicing debate. Fortunately we have this video:
12.04: Grönholm says that with 21 months and two weeks until migration deadline day, there's a lot of work ahead.
Wagener asks audience, who thinks I'm here because Luxembourg has migrated. Reaction - no hands, lots of laughs. Domestic credit transfers are Sepa-compliant and have been processed via Step 2 since 2006. SDD will follow in September. R-messages are complex, costly to implement and difficult to communicate.
Migration is the minimum, new initiatives are what the market is looking for and we shouldn't make it wait.
Vance says Irish situation is very different to Luxembourg - we've only tip-toed into migration - hopes that by EBAday 2013 might have some answers. Ireland still waiting on government consultation process on Sepa reg derogations (ie. use BIC until 2016).
Scale of investment needed to meet deadline is "huge" and we need help/collaboration. This is also an issue for corporate customers - there is "significant resistance" to bearing the cost of migration.
Vance also raises possibility of increasing speed of SCT clearing and settlement process - getting it down to minutes - to meet demands of new channels like mobile.
A nice literary reference from Fitzgerald on running a vendor helping with Sepa migration - sometimes I feel like Vladimir in Waiting for Godot.
11.24: Next up we'll learn about a 'successful migration to Sepa' with Aktia Bank's Janina Grönholm, AIB's Peter Vance, Serge Wagener from BCEE and Sentenial's Sean Fitzgerald.
11.10: Craig Ramsey has been blogging again:
11.08: My colleague Liz has caught up with Deutsche Bank's John Ball:
10.59: Audience member raises the spectre of Apple. They've got so much money that if they decide banks' systems aren't up to scratch will they just bypass them? In the anniversary of the Titanic are we watching a bunch of sinking ships trying to stay afloat?
Banks - 'yes'. If we lose control of the ecosystem we're doomed. US department store has just replaced all terminals with iPhones.
Wallis says its not so simple. Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook - gang of four - can get into payments but collaboration is needed. [Apple doesn't like collaboration though].
Armstrong also raises the issue of trust - surveys show people still trust banks most with their money.
10.51: Brennan moves things on to the corporate side. Wallis says IBM has bought around 20 analytics firms in just five years. This stuff can give bank customers added value. Pairman asks how ready are corporates for XML standards and how can banks help them with this (or even get them interested).
An audience member bemoans Sepa remittance:
10.30: Banks bemoans the lack of standards. There is no standard for text messages - if you send one from Germany to France is has to get translated. Why? It wouldn't happen for a payment.
Agreement that to get mobile payments working you need all players in an ecosystem on board but banks don't have links yet with some of these (telcos etc). Need to get everyone onboard.
Banks says tech can be a hindrance. Why does my bank have details on my one balance for my one account in five different places showing different amounts. Banks don't have a good enough handle on the data.
Wallis talking about social media - an Australian bank is working with a travel agency to identify specific groups in Facebook that they can target certain offers at. This brings us back to owning customer data. Tesco knows what you bought there today but Visa knows how much you spent the previous day at Sainsbury's.
10.13: We're at the 'better application of technology in payments' panel with Steve Pairman from JP Morgan, Mitch Armstrong from ACI, Adam Banks from Visa Europe and James Wallis from IBM. Bank of Ireland's Vincent Brennan moderates.
Some opening remarks:
Pairman says one of the key benefits of Sepa is the use of XML standard - as long as we can use the standard in a standardised way.
Armstrong says banks are being told to innovate by governments but its tough because 70% of IT spend is on legacy and dealing with regulation.
West says its not about what we do with technology, its what technology does to us. Customers (individuals and corporates) demand new services because of IT.
Wallis thinks the use of real-time analytics gives banks a more complete view of the customer but no firm has complete picture so we need collaboration. Of course, all this data raises privacy concerns.
09.53: More MyBank news, with some major Italian banks and e-merchants signing up for the pilot. Read about it
here.
09.41: A reminder that delegates can download the EBAday app, which is getting rave reviews:
09.36: EBAday day two (yes it does sound odd) will see panels covering how to create value client relationships, the application of technology in payments, e-invoicing, Sepa migration, innovation, and the value of data.
You can catch up with yesterday's events
here.