payment solutions, person - toperson mobile payment solutions and payment initiation services by the industry in 2017 ; 2. how the eurosystem – in its role as operator – could advance the retail payments market by offering instant payment settlement services in central bank money. 1. fostering european retail payments integration – deliverables the eurosystem expects from payment service providers in 2017 for the eurosystem, a major challenge of digitalisation in the payments industry is ensuring that the introduction of innovative payment solutions does not ( re ) introduce fragmentation into the european market. it is understandable that, initially, most innovative retail payment solutions delivered by the industry tend to focus on national markets. however, i want to be very clear here and emphasise that innovative solutions that do not have the potential to extend their 1 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches reach at pan - european level are not in line with the expectations of the eurosystem and the goals of the single market. the three most important areas for improving the user experience in retail payments are instant payments, ( person - to - person ) mobile payments and payment initiation services. in conjunction with the european legislator and the erpb, the eurosystem, in its role as catalyst, fosters paneuropean developments in all three areas. ( 1 ) instant payments in line with the expectations of the erpb, the eurosystem encourages payment service providers to make instant payment solutions in euro available to end users at a paneuropean level from november 2017. ( 2 ) ( person - to - person ) mobile payments aligned with the timeline for the implementation of the instant payment scheme, the eurosystem expects the launch of a standardised look - up service that allows ( person - to - person ) mobile payments using the mobile phone number of the payee as a proxy for the iban. this service should be launched by the end of 2017 and should not be restricted to national ibans. ( 3 ) payment initiation services in line with the erpb, the eurosystem expects the market to work on the definition of a common set of technical, operational and business requirements for the development of an integrated market for payment initiation services. these requirements will be based on the provisions of the payment services directive and the related regulatory technical standards ( rts ). they should become available in 2017 so as to leave sufficient time for the relevant market actors to implement them by the time the rts apply ( i. e. towards the

yves mersch : 2017 - a decisive year for innovative retail payment services keynote speech by mr yves mersch, member of the executive board of the european central bank, at the french payments committee conference on " technological innovations in payments and beyond ", bank of france, paris, 6 january 2017. * * * introduction between christmas and new year, many tv programmes and magazines looked back at events, cultural and political, that shaped 2016. focusing on the field of payments innovation, i will also begin with a very short review of the events of last year. but the main part of my speech will be dedicated to looking ahead. in particular, i will discuss why 2017 is going to be a decisive year for the success of innovative retail payments services in europe. in 2016 the foundations were laid for pan - european innovative payment solutions. in the scheme layer, the european payments council ( epc ) finalised the framework for pan - european instant payment solutions. the instant payment scheme is the basis for the europe - wide implementation of instant credit transfers, as well as the launch pad for other innovative payment solutions, such as person - to - person mobile payments. fostered by the euro retail payments board ( erpb ), work is under way not only on instant payments and mobile payments, but also payment initiation services and e - invoicing, among other things. in the clearing layer, ( some ) automated clearing houses ( achs ) agreed and committed to a paneuropean approach for clearing instant payments in euro. this approach consists of ( i ) harmonised risk management, ( ii ) a uniform settlement procedure in target2 and ( iii ) fair and open access policies to facilitate interoperability. in the settlement layer, the eurosystem launched an investigation into providing a pan - european instant payment settlement service in central bank money. with these foundations in place, 2017 will see decisive action in all three layers. first, payment service providers will have to deliver instant payment solutions to the end users. second, most achs will be ready to launch their instant payment clearing systems. and last but not least, the eurosystem will decide on whether or not to provide a pan - european instant payment settlement service in central bank money to payment service providers. i would now like to look more closely at two specific areas of action : 1. how the eurosystem – in its role as catalyst – will continue to drive european retail payment integration by fostering the provision of pan - european instant