Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA)

Migration to SEPA

The greek banking community acknowledges the need to migrate to SEPA and for this purpose it has set up the appropriate organisational structure

Organisation

A SEPA Forum has been established with the objective of monitoring SEPA progress. The SEPA Forum is chaired by a Deputy Governor of the Bank of Greece and participation within consists of the Hellenic Bank Association, DIAS S.A., a company that manages and operates a retail payment system, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Union of Hellenic Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the Federation of Greek Industries, the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry, public utility companies and consumers' associations. The Hellenic Bank Association is responsible for the design and implementation of SEPA, through specialised working groups and the Executive Committee, which represents the decision-making body for banks.

Timeplan

The timeplan consists of three phases: a) the design phase, which started in 2004 and has been completed, b) the implementation phase, which started in mid 2006 and was concluded by the end of 2007 and c) the migration phase, which started in January 2008; the goal is that a critical mass of transactions will have migrated to SEPA by the end of 2010. More specifically, banks have developed the SEPA products, which they have been offering to the public since January 2008 (SEPA Credit Transfers – SCT and card payments), while SEPA Direct Debits (SDD) since November 2009. The preparations and planning of the Greek banking community for the migration to SEPA are presented in the document SEPA Implementation and Migration in Greece, issued by the Hellenic Bank Association.

Use of SEPA

In order to monitor the actual use of SEPA means of payments, the Eurosystem defined indicators for the migration period, which show the utilisation of the SEPA Credit Transfers (SCT) and of the SEPA Direct Debits (SDD). The relevant data are available at the site of ECB “SEPA Migration: SEPA in use”.