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SEPA has been developed by the European banking industry. Banks have had to harmonise the way euro retail payments are made and processed. This has entailed substantial costs, but benefits will materialise in the medium to long term.
Banks will be able to offer their services more easily to customers across SEPA, regardless of location. In addition, banks will be able to expand their business and to serve their customers’ needs by offering eSEPA services (such as e- and m-payments, e-invoicing) in addition to the SEPA products.
SEPA will align the conditions under which payments are made. This will result in:
This will encourage competition and enable banks to negotiate better conditions with their own service providers.
Regulation (EC) 924/2009, which replaced Regulation (EC) 2560/2001 on 1 November 2009, established that financial intermediaries must charge similar prices for comparable cross-border and domestic payments within the European Union. However, cross-border payments are traditionally more expensive and complicated to process.
SEPA will overcome this imbalance by making cross-border payments as efficient and inexpensive as national payments.
