The "Single Euro Payments Area" (SEPA) creates a single European market for payment instruments. The aim of SEPA is to enable payments to be made and received within Europe as efficiently and easily as if the transactions were being carried out within a single country. Therefore standards are being drawn up for the whole SEPA area for the three main payment instruments (credit transfers, direct debits and card payments). Moreover, the same legislation will apply to all the countries involved.

THE STEERING COMMITTEE ON THE FUTURE OF MEANS OF PAYMENT: COMMUNITY CONSULTATION.

Chaired by the Governor of the National Bank of Belgium, the Steering Committee on the Future of Means of Payment accompanies and coordinates the implementation of SEPA in Belgium. The changeover to SEPA is led by the banking sector but is coordinated at community level in order to take full account of all the economic players involved and the complexity of the change.

The Steering Committee brings together all the parties involved at the highest level with the aim of ensuring that SEPA is introduced under the best possible conditions in Belgium. The Steering Committee is chaired by the Governor of the National Bank of Belgium and members include federal ministers, ministers from the Communities and Regions and representatives of companies, traders and consumers. It monitors the changeover to SEPA in Belgium based on a periodic progress report, drawn up by the SEPA Working Group which reports to the Steering Committee. The progress of this market-driven process is reviewed at regular intervals in order to enable a correct assessment to be made.

• FAQ about SEPA, NL (pdf - 62k) - FR (pdf - 61k)

Links and publications

• NBB:
  • Migration vers les virements européens - Dépliant pour les imprimeurs
  • The Belgian Migration to SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area)
    Economic Review December 2009 (pdf - 512k)
  • The Single Euro Euro Payments Area (SEPA)
    Economic Review, September 2007 (pdf - 304k)
• Febelfin:
  • http://www.sepabelgium.be (Dutch - French)
• European Central Bank (ECB):
  • SEPA website
  • e-SEPA website
  • The Single Euro Payments Area: an integrated retail payments market  (pdf - 2040k)
  • The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA): beyond theory into practice (seventh progress report) October 2010 (pdf - 1.031k)
  • What is SEPA?, Why SEPA?  (pdf - 372k)
  • Eurosystem's SEPA expectations  (pdf - 225k)
• European Communities:
  • Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing technical requirements for credit transfers and direct debits in euros and amending Regulation (EC) n° 924/2009
  • Regulation (924/2009) of the European Parliament and of the Council on cross-border payments in euro (pdf - 137k)
  • http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/payments/sepa/index_en.htm (EN) - FR - DE
  • Directive 2007/64/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 November on payment services in the internal market up to the amendment of Directives 97/7/EC, 2002/65/EC, 2005/60/EC and 2006/48/EC and the withdrawal of Directive 97/5/EC, 5 December 2007  (pdf - 239k)
• European Payments Council (EPC):
  • www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu