ECB SEPA Statistics – February 2014 2

Earlier this year, we saw that the ECB stats showing SEPA migrations gathering momentum. The ECB SEPA statistics showed improved levels of SEPA compliance, but of course corporates and SME’s were far from ready. Recognising this shortfall, the European Commission proposed a 6 month transition period which was formally adopted by the Council of the European Union in February, 2014.

ECB SEPA statistics for January and February 2014 by country and pay instrument, provide a useful insight into which SEPA countries are doing well and which are not.

All of the information in this post has been derived from: http://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/sepa/about/indicators/html/index.en.html

The data captures information for the following euro-currency countries: Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland & Estonia.

Rather than share which countries are doing the best / worst (you can do that yourself by clicking the above ECB link), I thought it be interesting to see how things are going overall. Following are my thoughts (based on February, 2014 data):

• Migration to SEPA Credit Transfers continues to make good progress:
  • All euro countries are in the >75%  bracket of SEPA Credit Transfers as a percentage of all Credit Transfers
  • Most countries are in the >90%  bracket of SEPA Credit Transfers as a percentage of all Credit Transfers
• The migration to SEPA Direct Debits are happening sporadically:
  • There are still 6 countries where SDD make up less than 60% of the overall in country direct debit collections
  • On the up side, there are 6 countries where SDD make up more than 80% of the in country direct debits
  • We all understand and appreciate that SDD implementations are more complex, and this is reflected in the statistics

Below I have highlighted the ECB data into categories which clearly highlight the progress being made.

93.9% of all Euro area Credit Transfers were SEPA Credit Transfers (Source: ECB):

January, 2014:

• < 60% – 2 countries
• 60-70% – 4 countries
• 70-80% – 0
• 80-90% – 5 countries
• 90-100% – 7 countries

February, 2014:

• < 60% – 0
• 60-70% – 0
• 70-80% – 2 countries
• 80-90% – 3 countries
• 90-100% – 12 countries
• TBC – 1 country

80.3% of all Euro area Direct Debits were SEPA Direct Debits (Source: ECB):

Finland, Estonia and Lativa are excluded from the below count. Finland and Estonia because they will replace legacy direct debits with SEPA Credit Transfers. Latvia, because they joined the euro on 1st Feb, 2014 and as such have until 1st January, 2015 to migrate to SDD.

January, 2014:

• < 60% – 8 countries
• 60-70% – 2 countries
• 70-80% – 4 countries
• 80-90% – 0
• 90-100% – 1 country

February, 2014:

• < 60% – 6 countries
• 60-70% – 1 country
• 70-80% – 1 country
• 80-90% – 4 countries
• 90-100% – 2 countries
• TBC – 1 country

Do these statistic ring true in your organisation? Are your SEPA Credit Transfer implementation(s) nearing completion? Are you rolling your sleeves up for upcoming SEPA Direct Debit implementation(s) ?