SEPA works to expand user base

VILNIUS -  The Bank of Lithuania aims to include more institutions into the Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) project and attract different groups of users of payment services or associations representing these groups: consumers, small-, medium- and large-sized enterprises, developers of IT services and other parties concerned, the Lithuanian national bank said in a statement, reports LETA. A meeting of the SEPA Committee will be held on Oct. 26 at the Bank of Lithuania.
According to the project, the features of SEPA payment instruments (SEPA credit transfers, SEPA direct debit), the issues of legal regulation, and the aspects of the interface between customer and bank according to ISO20022 XML will be discussed during the meeting.

Representatives of the public sector, the State Consumer Rights Protection Authority, the Association of Local Authorities of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Business Confederation (ICC Lithuania) and the Confederation of Lithuanian Industrialists were invited to attend the meeting.

“The aim of such cooperation is to continue the dialogue between the providers and the users of payment services. Our first meeting with the users took place this spring already; there was a meaningful exchange of views on the implementation of the SEPA project. This time we expect a larger number of participants, enterprises are taking an increasingly greater interest in SEPA,” member of the board of the Bank of Lithuania and the chairman of the SEPA Coordination Committee Vaidievutis Geralavicius commented.

Currently SEPA covers all the EU member states, as well as Norway, Iceland, Lichtenstein, Monaco and Switzerland. Private customers, enterprises and other economic entities may send and receive domestic and cross-border payments in euros under the same conditions, rights and obligations.
SEPA provides a possibility to effect non-cash payments in euros for any beneficiary from a single bank account and using common payment instruments.

At the end of 2007, domestic commercial banks, foreign bank branches, the Association of Lithuanian Banks and the Bank of Lithuania established a SEPA Coordination Committee. Seven working groups were set up to deal with specific tasks.