Changes in payment transactions in the EU valid from February 1, 2014

As of  February 1, 2014 come into effect changes of internal and international debit payments and payments in EUR made within and across the borders of EU Member States and non-EU countries Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Monaco and Switzerland. The project called Single European Payments Area (SEPA) establishes rules for the removal of the existing problems in the existing payment system (especially high bank fees and long clearing times).

In the scope of SEPA do not fall:

• payment transactions carried out between payment service providers
• large payments
• transactions through a payments with credit cards including cash withdrawals
• payments by mobile phone

Another change in EU payments is the obligatory use of the bank account number in the IBAN format instead of today used national bank account BBAN. For more information, see:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:094:0022:0037:EN:PDF