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If you travel from one euro area country to another, you can still easily buy something with euro cash. But paying cashless, for example with a card, outside your home country is more difficult. This is due to technical, legal and market barriers stemming from the time before the single currency. SEPA aims to overcome these barriers. The result will be a single market for non-cash payments. For consumers, making non-cash payments across borders will be as easy, efficient and secure as they are today within one country.
SEPA is an initiative of the European banking industry. The ECB, the European Commission and other institutions play a supporting role. Read more
The Eurosystem has noticed that, despite some progress, SEPA has lost some momentum. It is urging market participants to speed up migration.
The Sixth Progress Report (November 2008) recommends that banks ensure more communication, clear product offerings and the delivery of a consistent customer experience in order to encourage use of SEPA credit transfers by their customers: 754 kB de . en . el . es . fr . fi . it . nl . pt . sl . sk . sv