Today the European Payments Council (EPC) Board has approved the inclusion of Montenegro and Albania in the geographical scope of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payment schemes.
The geographical scope of the SEPA payment schemes now covers 38 countries.
As a result, all existing EPC payment scheme participants should be able to send or to receive SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT), SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) and SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) transactions to and from SCT, SCT Inst and SDD scheme participants from Montenegro and Albania as of when their financial institutions will have adhered to the respective scheme(s).
The adherence of Montenegrin and Albanian financial institutions to the SEPA payment schemes, according to the EPC calendar, will be enabled starting from April 2025. The Operational Readiness Date (ORD) for payment service providers (PSPs) from Montenegro and Albania is set for 5 October 2025 (update made on 15 January 2025).
The press releases, the updated SEPA map as well as duly amended EPC List of SEPA Scheme countries are made available on our website (see ‘related documents’).
Your reactions
If you would like to comment on this article, please identify yourself with your first and last name. Your name will appear next to your comment. Email addresses will not be published. Please note that by accessing or contributing to the discussion you agree to abide by the EPC website conditions of use.