Consumers and companies in 32 European countries united in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) initiative will be able to make financial transfers to foreign countries under the same conditions as at home as of February 1, 2014, spokesperson of the European Commission Delegation in Slovakia Andrej Králik told journalists at a press conference on Monday, February 11.
The aim of the SEPA project is to harmonise all procedures and rules in a way that will free consumers from the need to differentiate between domestic and foreign payments. This will simplify the system and make carrying out payments more effective.
"According to this system, both ordinary people and firms will need only one bank account in the whole union [SEPA], only one bank card, only one transfer," said Králik for the TASR newswire. The launch of the project in February 2014 is expected to bring lower expenditures, to speed up payments and to contribute towards creating new innovative solutions, such as in the sphere of mobile-phone payments, for example.
Apart from the 27 EU-member states, the SEPA also includes the four members of the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) plus Monaco.
(Source: TASR)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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