Clifford Chance

The SEPA Regulation: The Clock is Ticking

15 February 2012

The SEPA Regulation will be the fourth major regulatory intervention within a decade designed to achieve a harmonised euro payments market and will apply to most credit transfer and direct debit transactions denominated in euros within the EU, setting 1 February 2014 as the migration deadline for credit transfers and for most direct debits. The SEPA Regulation will standardise technical requirements (including message format and data) and empower payers with new rights to instruct their payment service providers to impose restrictions on direct debits. It will tackle multilateral interchange fees in relation to euro direct debits, phasing most of them out by 1 November 2012, and make payment schemes interoperable and payee accounts reachable via an EU-wide credit transfer and/or direct debit scheme. In order to ensure that the technical requirements contained in the SEPA Regulation are in sync with market and technological developments, the Commission will be given powers to amend such requirements through "delegated acts".

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