SEB

Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and SEB

Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) includes 27 EU member states plus Norway, Island, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

Establishment of the Single Euro Payments Area will ensure that execution of payments in Euro all over the Europe is as easy as domestic payments.

Three new payment instruments will enter the market

Single Euro Payments Area will launch three new payment instruments:

Payments (SCT-SEPA Credit Transfer) – giving instructions for transferring monetary funds from one’s own bank account to the beneficiary’s bank account from one bank to another via electronic channels within EU (European Union) and EEA (European Economic Area).
Direct debits (SDD-SEPA Direct Debit) – payer authorises the beneficiary to transfer the funds from the payer’s account to the beneficiary’s account on the basis of invoice, delivered for using a service.
Card payments – the payer carries out an electronic payment at the point-of-sale, using a bankcard for that purpose.

Implementation of Single Euro Payments Area will bring about changes not only for domestic payments within the Eurozone’ countries, but also for payments between the Eurozone countries, for non-Euro countries of the EU** and EEA** member states, in order to offer the consumers the possibility of using SEPA payment instruments for carrying out payments in Euro. Local payment systems of Non-Euro countries in national currencies will not be affected.

SEPA instruments in use only in banks, who have joined the PE-ACH (Pan- European Automated Clearing House)

Pan-European credit transfers in euro will start functioning under the new scheme as of January 28th 2008. Direct debits in euros will be launched the latest by November 2009. SEPA member banks have committed to start issuing at least one product, corresponding to the EMV chip standard starting from 2008.

SEPA instruments can be used only in those banks, who have joined the scheme (i.e. are reachable through a Pan-European Clearing system either as a direct or indirect member and have signed the SEPA Adherence Agreement)

SEB is a direct member of PE-ACH

SEB is the only bank in Estonia, who is a direct member of the Pan-European Clearing system (EBA STEP2 SCT Service) and who is entitled to provide the service to banks, who either do not want to or consider it not necessary to be direct members of the clearing system, but are still interested in providing the credit transfer service(SEPA payment - SCT).

SEB Group has taken SEPA to its heart and is participating in all the above activities in Europe, to offer our customers the newest and most effective payment services in Europe.

*Eurozone countries: Austria, Belgium, Spain, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal, France, Germany, Slovenia and Finland
** Non-Euro countries of the EU and EEA member states: all rest of EU member states and Norway, Island, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

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