At the retail level, one prerequisite for enhanced financial integration that is still needed is the fulfilment of the single euro payments area - SEPA.
The SEPA project, in which the European Central Bank acts as a helping hand, will create, out of the many different national payment schemes, an integrated scheme for each of the three main payment instruments (credit transfers, direct debits and cards). This process would also enable the consolidation of national retail infrastructures into more efficient pan-European infrastructures with competing operators.