Banks need to implement instant payments as soon as possible and provide an alternate narrative to the public debate on innovation through virtual currency schemes. So said Yves Mersch, an executive board member of the European Central Bank, in an introductory speech to a joint ECB and Banca d'Italia conference in Rome, as reported by Finextra. "The strategic importance of instant payments cannot be overstated," Mersch said. The European Payments Council last week set the ball rolling with the introduction of the Sepa credit transfer instant scheme, enabling banks to send and receive instant payments across Europe in less than ten seconds, with additional features on the way. The head of UBS has lashed out against regulators' efforts to rein in bankers' pay, reports the FT. Sergio Ermotti, chief executive of the Swiss bank says the push, on both sides of the Atlantic, is fuelled by envy among less well paid officials and risked stoking the populist backlash against capitalism. He says banking has been singled out for criticism over compensation in a way that other sectors, such as private equity and tech, has not.   Former deputy governor of the Bank of England, Paul Tucker, has sounded a warning that the next financial crisis may be on the way, saying banks' equity capital requirements should be increased to avoid "creating a false sense of security about coping smoothly in the event of large bank failures", reports the FT. Pointing to the low interest rates and weak productivity growth in many western economies since 2008, Tucker said it would be harder for central banks to support banks in the next financial crisis. Tucker was addressing the Financial Times' annual banking summit in London, where he said it was "nonsense" for investors and analysts to count on hybrid forms of capital, such as Alternative Tier 1 notes and Tier 2 notes, to absorb losses at banks during a crisis. Visa has scored a High Court victory over UK retailers in a long-running battle over interchange fees, reports Finextra. The high street retailers launched legal proceedings in the UK in 2013, claiming that Visa's UK and cross-border European interchange fees were contrary to competition law. Following the court ruling that the fees are lawful, Visa has issued an open letter urging merchants to work with it "to address the greatest disruption - and potentially the greatest opportunity - facing the merchant community in Europe today: the digitisation of commerce."