The FINANCIAL — According to APA-Economics, the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) has become operational on January 28 2008.
SEPA aims to make cross-border electronic payments in euro in the 27 countries of the European Union, the European Economic Area (Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland) and Switzerland – as quick, easy and efficient as domestic payments.
The SEPA is believed to remove payment barriers in the Eurozone, allowing cross-border transfers to take place on the same terms as domestic transactions.
The new system is described as the first step to removing national barriers and the natural extension of the single market and single currency.
The European Commission said added that this is a logical extension to the introduction of the euro and will produce substantial benefits through a more competitive and efficient payments market. The European Payments Council (EPC) was set up to develop a common infrastructure and standards in a self-regulatory initiative from the banking industry.
The Council called upon the industry to "redouble its efforts" to complete the SEPA project, which is supposed to replace the existing payment schemes by 2010.
