The Single Euro Payments Area becomes law across 32 countries next year after first being mooted a decade ago. But two recent reports have revealed many corporations are ill-prepared for the change.

Sepa is designed to unite the European marketplace by creating harmonised standards for domestic and cross-border payments. The deadline for compliance is February 1, 2014. But even though banks have largely updated their payments systems, many corporations have yet to migrate to the new system.