Brussels, 22/01/2008 (Agence Europe) - European finance ministers have adopted, without amendment, the draft conclusions on the Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) that was put to them on Tuesday 22 January (see EUROPE 9582). Some spoke of setting a date for completing the move from national payment systems to the SEPA system, to minimise the costs of double handling of payments. Italy would like a date set, with Italian Finance Minister Tomas Padoa-Schioppa saying that setting a date should be “at the heart” of the exercise. The United Kingdom was against such a move. Just like the Netherlands, it argued that the market should be the driving force in putting SEPA in place. European Central Bank President (ECB) Jean-Claude Trichet suggested that the ministers should meet again at a later date to possibly set a date in anticipation of the completion of the SEPA project, expected in 2010.
The SEPA system will become operational from Tuesday 28 January: “National borders will disappear thanks to the integrated Europe payment area,” said Slovenian Finance Minister Andrej Bajuk. Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy said that, with the launch of products compatible with SEPA, “we are moving from theory to practice”. The savings resulting from SEPA could, he said, reach €123 billion, or €238 billion if added value services, such as electronic billing, were included. On Tuesday 28 January, the date of the official launch of the fist SEPA-compatible products, the “SEPA goes live” event will be held in Brussels, with McCreevy, Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, a member of the ECB Executive Board, and Gerard Hartsink, head of the European Payments Council (an organisation set up in 2002 by European banking federations to put SEPA in place). For more information on this event go to: http: //ec.europa.eu/internal_market/payments/docs/sepa/conf_programme-2008_01_28_en.pdf (M.B.)