Sepa expected to drive banks' outsourcing

European banks will increasingly look towards technology partners to run their payments services as the Single Euro Payments Area is introduced next year.

Sepa will enable all European payments to be made or received with the same rights and conditions across the region. Banks will require new technology to achieve this and sourcing is set to increase, according to bank ABN AMRO.

The Dutch bank is already a large user of outsourced services but Sepa will increase this. Ann Cairns, CEO transaction banking at the bank, said, "Strategic sourcing partnerships - including outsourcing, off shoring and white labelling - will play an increasingly important role as the payments industry focuses on globalisation, regulation and performance."

The World Payments Report 2007, published today (13 September 2007), revealed that 58% of banks either already are outsourcing or plan to outsource all or part of their payments activities in the next five years. Some 68% of these plan to offshore the activity as well.