• One objective of the European Commission is to encourage free trade within Europe. Harmonisation of payment practices and pricing is key to enabling that objective and is defined in the vision of SEPA.
• The EC prefer market driven reform but are willing to regulate to force these changes.
• The impact will be on all organisations making payments in Europe, but especially those making cross-border payments in euro.
• The banks are tasked with delivering this vision of SEPA through the EPC

Electronic Credits and Collections
Electronic payments are the principle focus of SEPA, although electronic collections will be developed in the same framework.

Cash
Currently outside the scope of SEPA but 4 out of 5 commercial transactions are cash. Plans are underway to ensure value is given on cash in D+1 across Europe.

Cheques
Use of cheques is diminishing in the majority of countries in the EU and there are no plans currently underway to further the development and efficiency of a European cheque processing scheme. As such it is not in the scope of EU regulation or the EPC.

Cards
Rules for a SEPA compliant cards framework have been agreed through the EPC. Existing schemes will be developed to be SEPA compliant for Jan 2008.  Regulation 2560/2001 already requires cross border acquiring to be same price as domestic.

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