The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is an EU initiative to harmonise payments across the Eurozone.

The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is a European Union (EU) initiative to harmonise payments across the Eurozone. Its goal is to make European payments as easy and cheap as domestic ones by creating a single market for euro-denominated payments.

To achieve this, the European Payments Council (EPC) has created three SEPA schemes. Each scheme is a set of interbank “rules, practices and standards” that defines a payment instrument:

• SEPA Direct Debit (SDD)
• SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT)
• SEPA Cards Framework (SCF)