The European payments industry has jointly developed payment instruments that can be used all over EUROPE. Yet, the market incentives to actually use them instead of national LEGACY instruments were not strong ENOUGH to trigger SIGNIFICANT MIGRATION to SEPA. For the payments industry, the parallel operation and processing of both national and SEPA credit transfer and direct debit schemes is rather costly. Furthermore, the full benefits of SEPA will only materialize once migration is complete. The Euro system and several other major stakeholders, therefore, stressed the need for the establishment of an end date to ensure full migration from national credit transfer and direct debit schemes to their SEPA alternatives.

The European payments industry has jointly developed payment instruments that can be used all over Europe. Yet, the market incentives to actually use them instead of national legacy instruments were not strong enough to trigger significant migration to SEPA. For the payments industry, the parallel operation and processing of both national and SEPA credit transfer and direct debit schemes is rather costly. Furthermore, the full benefits of SEPA will only materialize once migration is complete. The Euro system and several other major stakeholders, therefore, stressed the need for the establishment of an end date to ensure full migration from national credit transfer and direct debit schemes to their SEPA alternatives.