Banks, business suffering Sepa confusion

Despite a year having passed since the launch of the Single Euro Payments Area (Sepa), banks and businesses are still waiting for the new EU processes concerning cross-border payments to get off the ground.

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In a survey of 244 corporates across the world primarily with annual revenues of more than $1bn, more than a third of respondents said they still haven't had any experience of Sepa credit transfers. According to Vocalink, which conducted the survey, a similar number of organisations said they did not expect to process any Sepa direct debits (slated for early 2010) until 2011 or later.

A separate study by consultancy Logica of 22 banks across the EU revealed widespread confusion about the Payments Services Directive (PSD), which concerns cutting the time taken to settle payments from days or weeks to as little as a few hours, under the Sepa umbrella. Adopted as a directive in 2007, PSD is slated to come into force Sepa-wide on 1 November 2009.

The study showed more than two-thirds of respondents didn't know when the directive was due to be made law in their own countries, with some even citing dates after the EU-wide law comes into force.

Logica director of payments Simon Bailey predicted confusion on when Sepa deadlines are about to fall could undermine the whole initiative to simplify pan-European payments.

"Variations in PSD, taken together with possible community-defined variations in the Sepa schemes, would entrench national differences - the opposite of what Sepa aims to achieve," Bailey said in a statement.