Since its inception almost 10 years ago, the creation of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) has had a long and rocky road to full fruition. Eurozone countries have witnessed the SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) go ahead, with a launch in January 2008. However, the SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) scheme has been delayed. It was postponed until November 2009, only to be pencilled in again for November 2010, when compliance is finally expected to be mandatory for all banks and payment providers.
At one point, 2010 was slated as the year when the critical mass of payments might have migrated to SEPA schemes so that the domestic schemes could have been switched off. This has now been put back to 2012, mainly because of the necessity of the legislation and the adoption of the Payments Services Directive by all member states as well as the delayed SDD launch.
