Confusion and national differences in the implementation of the Payments Services Directive (PSD) are the main challenges for European banks rolling out IT for the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), according to a study by Logica.

Banks are still unclear about the implications of PSD transposition for business and compliance planning programmes in payments and cash management, which could have severe effects on the initiative's progress and even put it " into reverse", said the study.

The research showed that banks are aware of who is responsible for representing them to the national governments of each country - either the national banking association or the central bank. But they were not clear about how consistency of the final version of the laws enacting PSD could be achieved across countries.

"This issue is especially crucial when the implementation process has a national perspective, as in the case of SEPA migration," said the study. " Variations in PSD taken together with possible community-defined variations in the SEPA schemes would entrench national differences - the opposite of what SEPA aims to achieve."