Single Euro Payments Area
The introduction of a Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) from January 2008 will gradually create a single, integrated pan-European market for euro payment services. Our desire to be at the forefront of developments in this field, combined with our long-standing expertise in servicing our clients, makes Fortis the ideal partner for your successful migration to SEPA.
What is SEPA?
Despite the introduction of a single currency, the European Union still faces fragmented payments markets and a wide variety of national payment standards and regulations, products, processing methods and infrastructures, leading to inconsistency and inefficiencies.
The introduction of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) from 28 January 2008 will create a single, integrated pan-European market for euro payment services. Companies and consumers will be able to make and receive payments in euro throughout Europe as conveniently, securely and cost-efficiently as domestic payments within national boundaries today. New cross-border payments instruments – credit transfers, direct debits and card payments – will be created. To begin with these will operate alongside existing domestic schemes. By the end of 2010-2011, a critical mass of payments is expected to migrate to the new instruments.
The technical framework has been established by the European Payments Council (EPC) which represents the banking community. In parallel, the European Commission is setting up a harmonised legal framework (Payment Services Directive or PSD) that will remove the legal barriers to the creation of SEPA. The PSD must be transposed by the EU members states into national law by 1 November 2009 at the latest.
SEPA will offer potential benefits to most businesses. Adopting SEPA credit transfers will make it as simple to pay suppliers abroad as it is to buy goods or services in your own country. Your company may also enjoy enhanced opportunities to penetrate foreign markets by using a uniform standard to process direct debits payments. Your collections in the euro-zone should become easier once you start using direct debits in a single format, with single value dating, uniform reporting and the possibility to reduce the number of bank relationships.
The countries so far involved in SEPA are the EU member states, plus Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Fortis, your preferred partner for all your payment services
In December 2005, Fortis started building a single cross-border platform for processing high-volume SEPA payments in a fast, cost-efficient and reliable way from January 2008.
Beside its future ‘SEPA payment engine', Fortis already operates a state-of-the-art cross-border platform for processing urgent and/or high-value and/or international payments.
Finding the right solution to ensure an efficient financial and operational management of your international cash resources requires a partner with an extended European network, a team of dedicated professionals and a comprehensive range of integrated products and services. Fortis offers you all of these, and more.
As one of the pioneers in the building of SEPA, Fortis welcomes the new Europe-wide payments environment as an opportunity to further enhance its payment services to all its clients.