SEPA
Single Euro Payments Area
The unified euro payments zone — a zone of 36 countries in which cashless EUR transfers take place under identical conditions.
What is SEPA?
SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) is an initiative of the European Union and the ECB that has unified the conditions for cashless euro payments across the entire zone — regardless of whether the payment is domestic or cross-border. The SEPA zone comprises 36 countries: all 27 EU Member States, EEA countries (Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein), Switzerland, the UK, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City, and Andorra.
SEPA has three main payment schemes:
- SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) — standard SEPA transfer, settlement within 1 business day
- SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) — instant transfer within 10 seconds, 24/7, max. 100,000 € per transaction (from October 2025 mandatory for all eurozone banks)
- SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) — pull payment, where the payer has pre-authorised a mandate (e.g. for utility payments or subscriptions)
SEPA is governed by Regulation (EU) 260/2012, which specifies mandatory formats, timelines, and client rights.
When it is used
SEPA is the default for all EUR B2B payments in Europe — from collecting regular subscriptions (SDD) through salary payments (SCT) to instant payments for e-commerce (SCT Inst).
See the Invoicing module and the Accounting module.
Related terms
- IBAN — standardised account number, a prerequisite for SEPA. See /en/glossary/iban.
- QR platba — the “Pay by Square” format used in Slovakia and the Czech Republic for SEPA payments. See /en/glossary/qr-platba.
- O2C — SEPA payment is the final stage of the O2C process. See /en/glossary/o2c.
In Modulario
The Accounting module in Modulario generates SEPA XML payment orders (pain.001) for bulk export to internet banking and processes incoming SEPA statements (camt.053) for automatic matching of receivables in the Invoicing module.
Modulario generates SEPA orders in the standard pain.001 XML format accepted by all major banks. When importing a bank statement in camt.053 format, the system automatically matches incoming SEPA payments to receivables and assigns them to the correct invoice — payments without a variable symbol are flagged for manual review.
Related terms
IBAN
An internationally standardised bank account number — in Slovakia 24 characters, beginning with the country code SK.
QR platba
A QR code on an invoice that contains all the details needed for payment — the customer scans it in their banking app and the payment is filled in automatically.
O2C
The process from receiving a customer order, through invoicing and delivery, to the payment being credited to the company's bank account.
P2P
End-to-end process from raising a purchase requisition, through the purchase order, delivery and invoice receipt, to payment to the supplier.
e-Invoice
A structured electronic invoice in XML/UBL format that can be processed automatically without manual re-keying.
Related Modulario modules
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