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 be a harmonised and low-cost market in cards by 2010, and a full replacement of legacy credit transfer and direct debit schemes as well.
But the banking industry - acting under the European Payments Council - is only discussing the introduction of a new low-value Credit Transfer Scheme in 2008 and a Direct Debit Scheme in 2009, with high-value transfer omitted and a full migration off and decommissioning of the legacy schemes at some future date.
