Card payments and Credit transfers are already well functioning in a pan-European area and correctly charged by intermediaries as provided by the Regulation on cross-border payments in euro.
Since 1997, when the directive relating to the cross-border credit transfers was adopted, the European environment and the regulatory framework for payments have evolved considerably. The introduction of the Euro and the development of e-commerce were the first material conditions towards more retail cross border low value payments. Though the European banking sector was prepared and already organised for high-value cross border credit transfers (TARGET and EURO1), it was not as developed for retail payments which while increasing in number, still represent a very small part of the total number of transactions, which for the most part remain national and heterogeneous.
In the perspective of developing a Single European Payment Area (SEPA), with the help of a New legal Framework adapted to the commercial activity of financial service providers, the Banking industry has organised itself within the European Payments Council (EPC), created in mid-2002 to answer these issues.
Currently the EPC works to provide European consumers with a pan-European direct debit instrument and a set of European standards for a SEPA to be fully established by 2010 at the latest.