They could, for instance, pay rent for children studying abroad, pay for a holiday home, or pay for services provided by European companies, e.g. mobile telephone services, insurance companies, utilities, etc. People who live, work or study outside their home country will no longer need one bank account at home and another one abroad. The use of payment cards will be more efficient, as consumers will be able to use the same card for all euro payments. This will reduce the necessity for people to carry cash. Innovative services can be offered to consumers irrespective of national borders. The long-term goal of the banking industry is that the SEPA payment instruments will only be used in electronic form. Payments can then be easily combined with other e-services in the case of both individual and corporate clients. These include e-invoicing, mobile or internet payment initiation, airline e-tickets, credit advice or e-reconciliation. As a consequence, consumers will spend less time handling payments. Everything will be easier, faster and cheaper ... in the long term. Payment cards are becoming a favourite payment instrument with consumers, and are increasingly replacing cheques and cash payments. The use of cards is thus expected to grow in the future. Thanks to the creation of a single euro payments area, acquirers will be able to process all SEPAcompliant card payments, even across borders. In the SEPA environment, merchants will be able to choose any card payment processing entity in the euro; this will increase competition and reduce costs.
To do that, it has involved not only the stakeholders in the euro area, but also those in other countries of the European Union, Poland obviously included, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. Communities outside the euro area will thus have the opportunity to participate in euro payment systems, and will be able to adopt SEPA standards and practices, thereby contributing to the establishment of a single market for payment services. The EPC plans first SEPA products to come on the market at the beginning of the next year. Therefore, today’s Bank Forum is an excellent opportunity for an in-depth discussion on the role and place of the Polish payment infrastructure in the SEPA world. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to present you the discussants of our panel, in alphabetical order: Mr. Ryszard Drużyński, Vice President of Raiffeisen Bank Polska, Mr. Krzysztof Kalicki, President of the Management Board of Deutsche Bank Polska, Mr. Ronnie Richardson, President of the Management Board of Kredyt Bank, Mr. Witold Zieliński, Vice President of the Management Board of Citibank Handlowy. I would like this discussion to be broad and dynamic, that's why feel free to join it. First, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that changes ahead of us are needed to move towards a more integrated payments market, which will bring substantial economic benefits. The SEPA will not only introduce more comparable services, but will also foster competition and drive innovation.