Card industry initiates European Cards Stakeholders Group for card standardisation

This new association takes over the mission of the Cards Stakeholders Group (CSG). Its role is to promote card harmonisation in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), notably through the development of the SEPA Cards Standardisation Volume (the Volume). The ECSG is currently made up of 32 organisations from five sectors throughout the card payment chain.

The transformation of the CSG into the ECSG, with the formal legal status of an international not-for-profit association, reinforces the commitment from the five industry sectors which were already represented in the CSG. These sectors are the retailers/wholesale, vendors (cards, payment devices, related IT systems), processors of card transactions, card schemes, and payment service providers.

ECSG will strives for the maintenance and evolution of the Volume in line with market needs, reflecting the evolution of card payment technology. Besides the volume it is also focused on the promotion of Volume conformance throughout the card payments value chain, to enable a more harmonised SEPA card payment ecosystem. This conformance process is called “labelling”.

In addition to the 32 member organisations, the ECSG welcomes four observers including the European Commission and the European Central Bank. These European institutions have been supportive of the creation of the ECSG, just as they have acknowledged the CSG’s achievements and the relevance of this body for European cards standardisation.