National Payments Plan A Strategic Direction for Payments April 2013 National Payments Plan National Payments Plan Steering Committee Chairman Tony Grimes Department of Finance Aidan Carrigan Department of Social Protection Siobhán Lawlor National Consumer Agency Ann Fitzgerald IBEC Patrick Delaney Central Bank of Ireland (Payments & Securities Settlements Division) Maurice McGuire Central Bank of Ireland (Currency Issue Division) Paul Molumby Central Bank of Ireland (Consumer Protection) Bernard Sheridan RGDATA Tara Buckley Irish Payment Services Organisation Pat McLoughlin AIB Gerry Griffin Bank of Ireland Vincent Brennan Electric Ireland Paul Cullen Research and Administration Ronnie O’Toole Central Bank of Ireland Daniel McLean PO Box No. 11517 Russell Burke Spencer Dock Peter Hopkins North Wall Quay Kevin Condron Dublin 1 Joe Doyle Tel: 01 224-6103
[email protected] Page 1 National Payments Plan Chairman’s Foreword Ireland is currently facing an immense set of challenges to restore economic stability, a task made all the harder by the continued financial turmoil and economic weakness globally. Some of the challenges are immediate, such as returning the Exchequer finances to a sustainable level. In parallel, we must make the structural changes to our economy to ensure that our national competitiveness is enhanced. The payments industry has an important part to play in this. While there has been substantial investment in upgrading Ireland’s payments infrastructure in recent years, we are lagging in terms of the take-up of these technologies by Government, business and consumers. For example, the National Competitiveness Council has ranked Ireland as the second highest in the Euro-area in terms of its use of cash as a proportion of GNP, while we are one of only a handful of countries that still use a significant volume of cheques.