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Press releases _
In Keeping with Other Spanish and European Operators and Systems
SERVIRED INCORPORATES TO ADAPT TO NEW SINGLE PAYMENTS AREA
ServiRed, a payments system that was previously registered as a civil partnership, has now been incorporated as a public stock company in order to join the planned Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) on the same legal terms as other Spanish and European payments systems.
The move was unanimously agreed at last week's extraordinary partners meeting. The board approved the change of ownership certificates into shares and designated the members of the new corporate board, which was duly constituted immediately convened, unanimously electing José Manuel Gabeiras as chairman.
The change of ServiRed's legal status comes in the context of adaptation to the SEPA by payment systems operating in the European Union. The aim is to go beyond the Single European currency, and to allow European citizens and companies to enjoy pan-European payments instruments as of 1 January 2008. The payments industry is now developing the common instruments, standards, procedures, and infrastructures to enable all Euro zone payments to be treated as internal rather than cross-border transactions. The SEPA is ascribing particular importance to the card payments market as a means of achieving integration in this single financial space, and European authorities are now preparing its regulatory framework, so that payments systems will no longer be domestic, but will all have a pan-European scope and meet European Union standards.
The transformation of ServiRed into a corporation will enable it to address this new stage on better terms and under legal conditions that are harmonised with all other domestic and European payments schemes and systems.
The ServiRed board voted to approved the bylaws of the corporation, which embody the rules and operating principles in force to date in the company, and which, according to Chairman José Manuel Gabeiras "are standards that have emerged from the ever generous effort to put the interests of society ahead of private ones."
Ownership is now represented by shares, but otherwise the ownership structure of ServiRed SA is not altered by the move. Shareholders include 102 banks, savings and loan institutions and credit cooperatives.
In addition to the chairman, the ServiRed board is made up by three representatives of "la Caixa", three of BBVA, two of Caja Madrid, and one each of Bancaja, Cajamar, Banco Cooperativo, Caja Laboral Popular, Banco de Sabadell, Caixa D'Estalvis de Catalunya, Caixa D'Estalvis del Penedés, Caja España, Barclays Bank, Deutsche Bank, Caixa D'Estalvis de Sabadell and Bankinter.
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