General Questions
What does the EAPS mean to individual cardholders?
Basically the EAPS extends the geographical reach of cards participating in a national or regional scheme to include the SEPA area. To cardholders, this means that they can use their card with the same ease as in their home country. POS and ATM terminals will be easily identified by the EAPS acceptance brand, which will be displayed at any device accepting cards of schemes which participate in the EAPS.
How is EAPS stimulating competition?
The EAPS will contribute to competition between the participating schemes, simply due to the fact that all participating schemes can operate in all EAPS countries and every acquirer can accept EAPS cards throughout the SEPA area. Together with the necessary technical standardisation which is taking place through various European initiatives, the EAPS contributes to a long term convergence process. The outcome of this convergence process is not pre-determined, but will be determined by the market. This opens up market opportunities for all participating schemes as well as for individual acquirers and issuers, who may benefit from this convergence process.
EAPS does not offer processing services. All participants are therefore free to choose among the market players who offer services, which will lead to increased competition and reduced costs, to the benefit of card holders, merchants and banks.
What is the underlying business model of the EAPS?
The business model of the EAPS preserves the high level of efficiency of national or regional schemes and extends their geographic reach within the SEPA. To this end, the EAPS bridges the business models of the various regional and national schemes in Europe preserving the high levels of efficiency in the individual regional markets.
As most transactions will remain within the national boundaries of the participating schemes, it is important to understand that the EAPS does not represent a radical change of all existing business models for something new, but is an evolutionary process, which allows convergence between schemes not only in terms of technology but also in terms of business models at the individual pace of those schemes.
The EAPS therefore operates in the inter-scheme level, for which it defines common rules and business models. By minimising central costs and maximising competition between technical service providers, the EAPS ensures a high level of cost-efficiency for its participants.
How will the EAPS contribute to the efficiency of the card business?
To achieve a similar level of efficiency as the current national or regional schemes, the EAPS has been conceived as a framework, preserving and building on the historical superior efficiencies of the national schemes.
EAPS is responsible for the administration between their participants, but it will not provide any processing services. The required processing services may be offered by any technical service provider, thus creating competition between technical service providers and ensuring continuous efficiency and cost-effective improvements.
In addition to this, the EAPS drives efficiency within the participating schemes: Any acquirer of any scheme participating in the EAPS is able to accept the cards of all other EAPS schemes throughout the SEPA, on the basis of one single acquiring contract with one of the EAPS schemes. The EAPS thereby opens up current domestic markets and leads to increased competitive opportunities. This will stimulate the implementation of common technical standards across the entire value chain of card transactions and lead to increased efficiency of card transactions in the SEPA.