News
Tough assignment for incoming EPC Secretary General
17 December 2008
The European Payments Council, which is the key controlling body of SEPA has advertised the position of Secretary General on 28th Nov. This follows the resignation of the previous Secretary General, Stewart MacKinnon, formerly CEO of Irish Payment Services Organisation Ltd. earlier this year, and the appointment of an interim holder to the position.
The advertisement coincided with the publication by the European Central Bank of the 6th Progress Report on SEPA, which considered that “the EPC should make several improvements to its governance arrangements in response to valid criticism from stakeholders, regulators and the Eurosystem. In the short term, these relate to the functioning of the EPC Secretariat, which should be furnished with the necessary resources to fulfil its tasks, i.e. to provide management and administrative support to EPC activities. The EPC Secretary General should be capable of delivering adequate project management and coordination of the different work streams of the EPC to achieve deliverables in a timely manner.”
It is clear that the new appointee will have a tough job to generate new impetus into the SEPA project at a time when the banking systems of Europe are already under pressure on many other fronts.