which, in turn, also has the potential to lower cash usage, which can be quite costly for banks and for society as a whole. who drives sepa? having discussed what “ to sepa ” means, let me turn to the question of who is in the driving seat of the sepa process. the creation of sepa is a major european policy objective for the european commission and the eurosystem. thus, we are closely monitoring the developments, assessing the state of preparation and providing guidance to the market where necessary. here, i refer back to the guidance we recently gave in the sdd dossier. also, in the upcoming weeks, we will have a further exchange of views on the possibility and necessity of a migration end - date for the sct and the sdd. notwithstanding the aforementioned political objective, i wish to emphasise that the establishment of sepa is a market - driven project. it is up to the banks to win over their customers and convince them through marketable and user - friendly sepa products and services. likewise, service providers to banks, such as clearing and settlement infrastructures, and information and communication technology suppliers are expected to drive sepa. one of the organisers of this summit, sia - ssb, has underlined its commitment to the sepa project. it is one of the first csms to have published its self - assessment against the eurosystem ’ s terms of reference for the sepa - compliance of retail payment infrastructures. i expect others to soon follow suit. who will “ go sepa ”? the expectation is for sepa to be more than a policy vision. it should address the needs of all users of payment services, irrespective of whether they are corporates, smes, merchants, public administrations or retail customers. however, in order to reap the benefits of sepa, users need to “ go sepa ”. by “ going sepa ”, i mean be ready to change : change habits, change national practices, even change focus, if necessary. for corporates, sepa is expected to enable bank relationships and account structures to be rationalised. a centralised treasury, better liquidity management and optimised payment processing will be made possible. even for smaller, mainly nationally - oriented corporates, sepa is expected to provide benefits as competition in the banking sector will increase, leading to a broader range of banks and banking services to choose from. however, in order

too safe to be efficient and inexpensive ” ; “ it is not modern enough ” ; “ it is too different from previous procedures ”. consequently, direct debit users are somewhat uncertain about what form the sdd would take. all users, including here in italy, should be reassured that their special needs can be met by means of individual offers from their banks, by transparent additional optional services that are offered by groups of banks or by additional services offered at the level of whole banking communities. users are obviously concerned about prices. they will only embrace the sdd scheme if it is clear that the prices of these services will not go up. in this respect, the review of eu regulation 2560 2 will extend its scope from credit transfers and card payments to include direct debits. thus, the price of making a cross - border direct debit will not exceed that of making a national direct debit. increasing the national prices would clearly be against the spirit of the review and would severely affect banks ’ reputations and credibility in the eyes of their customers. costs and prices are not only a matter of concern in the customer - to - bank domain, but also in the bank - to - bank domain. the multilateral interchange fee for the sdd has proven to be a controversial issue. to encourage the market to move ahead, the european commission and the european central bank have proposed an interim solution. the objective of the interim solution is to have, right from the start, a level playing - field in place for the both the sdd scheme and the national, legacy direct debit schemes. allowing a properly justified multilateral interchange fee ( mif ) for cross - border sdds during an interim phase would help to get the engine running. at national level, the existing legacy mif could remain in place and be applied to both legacy direct debits and sdds. any changes to the legacy mif should be applicable to the sdd scheme, too. given that most direct debits will initially still be conducted at the national level, the vast majority of direct debits would thus be treated in the same manner. customers, in particular, creditors, would not need to be afraid of price increases. regulation ( ec ) no 2560 / 2001 of the european parliament and of the council of 19 december 2001 on crossborder payments in euro. in the long term, an alternative compensation model for sdd will have to be devised, as it is understood that the transaction -