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Financial Director: SEPA - welcoming the inevitable
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SEPA: welcoming the inevitable
/financial-director/feature/2188541/sepa-welcoming-inevitable
02 Jul 2012, Dirk Braun, Commerzbank, Financial Director
EUROPEAN CORPORATES that have yet to prepare for the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA)
are already behind. SEPA - which aims to simplify transactions through the unification of payments
execution processes across Europe - is now a compulsory initiative, and the deadline for the
migration to both SEPA credit transfers and direct debits has been set as 1 February 2014.
That said, the transition to SEPA payments should not be regarded as an obligatory burden. Instead,
corporates should recognise the strategic benefits of SEPA implementation and should start
preparing their systems to welcome the change.
SEPA as a strategic concern
The aim of SEPA is to unify payments processes across Europe. In simple terms, SEPA will enable
corporates to make and receive payments to anyone in the region using a single bank account and a
single set of payment instruments. SEPA affects 32 countries in total, both within and beyond the
EU, and corporates in all these participating countries will observe a synchronisation of payments
formats. Additionally, the initiative includes the use of uniform standards and codes for exception
processes (often generated when transactions cannot be completed by processing systems).
The implementation of SEPA is now a given, yet the opportunity to benefit from the changes is not.
Finance Directors must realise that the question is no longer whether to "SEPA" or not to "SEPA",
but rather whether to "SEPA" or "SEPA+". Essentially this means that corporates should recognise
the strategic opportunities presented by the move towards payments centralisation and
standardisation of accounts payable and accounts receivable processes.
One way corporates can benefit is by embracing a centralised structure for payments which could
increase visibility and control over liquidity for corporates - leading to standardisation and improved
http://www.financialdirector.co.uk/print_article/financial-director/feature/2188541/sep... 17.07.2012