05 January 2012

EPC: SEPA gaining ground with corporates

The European Payments Council reports that for the first time, the gtnews Payments Survey 2011 asked its global corporate readers to rank Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) instruments among regularly-used methods to make and receive payments.

Although wire transfers (in the SEPA context, wire transfers are referred to as credit transfers) remain the most popular payment method across the board, just over a third of respondents said they regularly made payments via SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT), while 14 per cent used SEPA Direct Debit (SDD). The results are almost identical for corporates receiving payments via SEPA instruments.

As expected, percentages were much higher in Western, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) than in other regions. Interestingly, corporates operating in CEE reported the highest usage of SDDs, even greater than in Western Europe. Looking forward to plans within the next three years, the increase of SEPA instrument usage is expected to be substantial, with SDD usage increasing at a faster rate than that of SCT. Western Europe and CEE corporates are expected to see significant increase in usage, but even Middle East and African corporates estimate that SCT and SDD usage will increase by about 25 per cent.

Almost 20 per cent of corporate respondents already invested in SEPA compliance and more than 40 per cent said that investment plans were already in the making, whether that is within a three-month timeline or just ‘at some point'. The majority of respondents cited ‘cost savings' as their reason for planning to or investing in SEPA, followed by ‘centralisation of payments' and ‘full SEPA adoption is inevitable, so I want to be prepared'.

The 2011 Payments Survey results also show that some corporates are still hesitant to invest in SEPA services. When asked if their organisation planned to make that investment in the future, more than a third stated they had no plans; this translated into 20 per cent of those corporates operating in Western Europe. On the plus side, these findings reflect a step forward in terms of SEPA uptake compared to the Payments Survey 2010, when almost 50 per cent of corporates said that they were not planning a SEPA investment.


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