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Legal: Changing Tides Overseas |
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The borders of Europe’s electronic payments market are opening as the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) initiative radically restructures how payment services are provided. While opportunities abound for payment services providers, only those who understand the initiative and its market implications can position themselves to cash in.
SEPA is a next step in the politically driven evolution toward a common European financial market. To date, that evolution’s most notable event has been the creation of the “Eurozone”—a group of European nations that now use the euro.
SEPA seeks to streamline electronic payments in much the same way that the euro simplified currencies across Europe. It applies to all countries in the Eurozone—Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain—and also affects other members of the European Union that have not adopted the euro (such as the United Kingdom), as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.
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