SEPA SCOPE AND TIMING
SEPA is about local payments in Euro within the national markets that have adopted the Euro, but also about cross-border payments. In the EU’s view there should have been a harmonised and low-cost market in cards by 2010. By the end of 2010 we ought to be seeing the full replacement of legacy credit transfer and direct debit schemes reaching a point of no return as well, thanks to the commitment of all stakeholders.
That is and has been the SEPA Roadmap anyway.
But the banking industry - acting under the European Payments Council - only introduced the new low-value Credit Transfer Scheme in 2008 and a Direct Debit Scheme in November 2009, with high-value transfer omitted and a full migration off and decommissioning of the legacy schemes at some future date.
Only small volumes of credit transfers have moved onto the SEPA scheme so far, and the real launch of the Direct Debit is only expected when banks are forced to be reachable – in November 2010.
