Public-Private Hybrid Governance for Electronic Payments in the European Union

Abstract

This contribution illustrates the evolution of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) as a form of European hybrid governance. The hybridity of SEPA is conceived in terms of interaction between traditional hard law, soft law and privately produced rules. The public and private systems of rules – public in the form of European directives and regulations and private in the form of multilateral agreements among payment service providers – coexist and mutually shape the structure of the European payments system. These two systems of rules have formally been produced in independent rule-making processes and by discrete rule-makers – public and private respectively. However, public actors have exercised a considerable amount of influence over the private rules. They have done so through informal, yet systematized interactions with private actors and through a series of soft laws. And vice versa, private rule-makers and privately-produced rules substantially have affected the content of public rules. The question to be asked is whether this public-private hybrid governance structure is good governance.