Three months since European banks were to move credit transfer payments onto the Single Euro Payment Area (Sepa) system, progress has been slow and observers are asking whether the initiative could be held back.
Sepa, which is intended to harmonize cross-border payment schemes for eurozone countries, is scheduled to be fully in place by 2010--national systems are running in parallel with the new infrastructure for two years to ease the process. Direct debit services, initially slated to go live with credit transfer payments, were delayed due to some European Union members' late adoption of the Payment Service Directive.
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