Harmonised payment, communication and reconciliation are needed for corporates to join the 'instant payments' revolution, according to an article published in the European Payments Council's (EPC's) July newsletter. The article, by Massimo Battistella, manager of administration services at Telecom Italia, calls for instant payment standards to be designed in line with the standards of the Single Euro Payments Area (Sepa) Credit Transfer (SCT) scheme, which emphasises cross-border interoperability, speed, ease of use and security.

Battistella also notes that corporates would benefit from an approach in which banks apply the same standards of communication to all transfers with associated information for reconciliation, including those with immediate settlement.

The July issue of the EPC newsletter also included an article from its Chair, Javier Santamaría, discussing the topics covered in the June meeting of the Euro Retail Payments Board (ERPB), including: instant payments in euro, person-to-person (P2P) mobile payments, technical standards related to payment cards and e-invoicing payment issues.

The newsletter also contained articles on the following:

• An Update on Changes to the New Payment Services Directive (PSD2) by Maria Troullinou, Clifford Chance.
• Progress Towards a Single Digital Market in the EU by Liz Oakes, KPMG.
• Realising the European 'Payments Dream', by Paul Alfing, Chair of the e-Payments Committee of Ecommerce Europe
• MyBank: Update on e-authorisation Solutions by Giorgio Ferrero, Chairman of PRETA, and John Broxis, Managing Director of PRETA.