The objectives of greater harmonisation and increased innovation In the past, the main reasons for exploration at sea were political as well as commercial, such as the discovery of new trade routes. However, Captain Cook’s voyages in particular had an explicitly scientific purpose, too. The aim of his first journey, for example, was to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun.
SEPA is a project driven by business as well as politics and is also gaining more and more academic attention. A research conference held recently at the ECB found that a fundamental relationship exists between the retail payment business and overall banking performance. There is academic evidence that, in countries with more developed retail payment markets, the banks perform better.