Since 2007, the ECB has undertaken regular, comprehensive competitiveness reviews of developments in individual euro area countries. And in 2010, the ECB provided a detailed outline of how the Governing Council envisages a competitiveness framework for the euro area.
The SEPA project should be as much a part of a bank’s core business as the provision of efficient payment services to its customers. Now that we have a single market for goods and services, we need a single market for payments to actually pay for these goods and services.