Why the Berlin Group believes in public and transparent market consultation

 

The Berlin Group has at least five important reasons to include a public and transparent market consultation process into the standards development:

1. The Berlin Group is open for participation to any market supply-side (API Provider) participant: banks (ASPSPs), banking associations, payment associations, payment schemes and interbank processors active in the SEPA payment industry. Moreover, because the scope of the NextGen Taskforces might also be interesting for others, not necessarily only for Berlin Group members, the NextGen Taskforces are open for participation to any interested and committed non-Berlin Group market supply-side participant as well.
   
   In addition, an Advisory Group & Board is open for participation to any market demand-side (API User) participant: Third Party Providers (TPPs), FinTechs / IT Solution Providers, Merchants / Retailers / Corporates, Consumer organisations, and Industry Associations / Consultancies.
   
   Despite the already open character for participation, the Berlin Group aims at maximum market coverage and market acceptance. Therefore, public and transparent market consultation is deemed critical as an additional contribution to development of mature standards.
    

2. The Berlin Group itself is not engaged in the implementation of standards within or between schemes. Decisions on the implementation of the standards delivered by the Berlin Group are left to individual market participants. Nevertheless, experience of implementers not necessarily part of the Berlin Group standardisation work is important in order to identify and manage interoperability or technical implementation issues at the earliest possible stage and to keep the standards in line with the requirements of real implementations.
   
   It is a key objective of the Berlin Group to meet market demands and integrate as much practical experience of implementers as possible into the standards development. A public and transparent market consultation is deemed instrumental to this objective.
    

3. The Berlin Group has been created in the spirit of an ‘open source’-initiative with the intention to contribute its achievements freely to any interested party. The aim of the Berlin Group is to come to harmonised technical standards in the interbanking domain between Creditor Bank (Acquirer) and Debtor Bank (Issuer). The standards specifications issued via the Berlin Group website are provided free for use into the public domain.
   
   The harmonised character of the Berlin Group technical standards and publication of these standards into the public domain make it all the more obvious to include as much market participants into the standards development as possible and a public and transparent market consultation is an excellent way to ensure maximum market involvement.
    

4. To foster competitive and efficient standards, benefitting from the latest developments in payments technology, the Berlin Group wants to be open to innovative proposals that could improve the standards to the maximum extent.
    

5. At all times, developed standards will have to be compliant with applicable legislation and regulation. Market assessment and input is crucial to ensure maximum compliancy to relevant legislation and regulatory requirements.
    

Received contributions will be considered and assessed by the taskforce to which the topic resides. Where applicable, received contributions might be assessed on e.g. concreteness and feasibility, on whether they fit in scope of Berlin Group objectives (e.g. pan-European interoperability), not affecting the substance of the standards, etc.

 

All interested market participants and stakeholders are encouraged to participate in Berlin Group public consultations.