SEB: NORDICS’ P27 Flying the flag: SEB is enabling fast crossborder transactions for the Nordics
is for payments Next year, the Nordic countries will introduce a new, crossborder payments system that replaces domestic clearing houses. Driven by the region’s six big banks, it’s an example of how they can build trust and deliver superior customer service, says SEB’s Head of Transaction Services, Paula Da Silva Frantically digging around in your wallet to find a bank card will one day be a thing of the past. Future generations will instead ‘consciously agree’ to pay, even if they don’t physically authorise a transaction, with payments embedded in everything we do – particularly when it comes to the more mundane tasks. Want to buy a movie, as you do every time you turn on Apple TV? Your system will recognise that and pay for it accordingly. Run out of groceries? Your smart fridge will put an order through for you automatically, just as it did last week. A pipe dream for now, but perhaps not for as long as we think. Payments are
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becoming increasingly frictionless and real-time – particularly in the Nordics, where countries have long led the way in cashless transactions. “The banking industry cannot be the hindrance to the Internet of Things being adopted,” observes Paula Da Silva, head of transaction services at Sweden’s SEB, which is also the Nordics’ leading corporate bank. She’s seen the bank transform its payment services almost beyond recognition as society and technology have evolved over the past 30 years and she is only too aware of the commercial incentive and systemic importance of incumbent banks in the payment space. Right now she’s in a position to make sure they are doing the right thing.
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SEB is one of six of the region’s banks that have joined forces on the P27 initiative, the first, bank-owned pan-Nordic payment infrastructure for Nordic currencies and the euro. The name derives from its ambition to facilitate payments for the Nordics’ 27 million inhabitants. Da Silva is currently chair of P27, although she makes it clear that it will ‘eventually have an independent chairman, according to the rules and regulations of the shareholders’ agreement’. Meanwhile, she has been facilitating the set-up of the company, a task she has clearly relished, precisely because it facilitates the seamless data journey and circle of trust that she believes banks have the ability – indeed the necessity – to build. www.fintech.finance
