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The Single Euro Payments Area, or SEPA, is one of the banking industry's most significant contributions to the single internal market in Europe. SEPA is the next step towards European integration which aims to make all electronic cross-border payments in euro between the participating countries as easy, inexpensive and secure as 'national' payments are today within a single Member State. In the new SEPA world a customer can make electronic payments to any beneficiary located anywhere in the SEPA area using a single bank account and a single set of payment instructions. This means that making a payment from Dublin to Dusseldorf will be the same as from Dublin to Dingle.

Banks in Ireland are currently offering SEPA Credit Transfers and expect to start offering SEPA Direct Debit services during 2010. For Direct Debit originators this will mean that they can collect debits from accounts anywhere in the SEPA area. Over time, the SEPA Direct Debit scheme will replace the existing legacy Direct Debit scheme and all originators will be obliged to migrate to the new scheme.

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