SEPA in Latvia
On 18 December 2007, Oskars Spurdziņš, Minister of Finance of the Republic of Latvia, in his reply to Charlie McCreevy, the European Commissioner for Internal Markets and Services, appointed the Money and Payment Systems Working Group (MPSWG) as the national SEPA Steering Committee under the Euro Project auspices. Taking into consideration the current task of developing Latvia's National SEPA Plan, the MPSWG established the National SEPA Working Group on 28 October 2008. During the meeting the MPSWG decided on the composition of the Working Group and its tasks. The National SEPA Working Group held its first meeting on 14 November 2008. The meeting was mostly informative; nevertheless, the National SEPA Working Group took decisions about the structure of the National SEPA Plan and further organisational cooperation.
Latvia's National SEPA Plan presents an overview of tasks to be performed by public authorities, corporates, small and medium-sized enterprises, merchants, consumers, banks, payment system and payment technology providers for implementing the SEPA project in Latvia. The Plan presents more comprehensive information about SEPA payments, SEPA infrastructures, SEPA legal framework and standards as well as SEPA communication plan. In the course of 2009, the National SEPA Working Group has developed Latvia's National SEPA Plan, 1.0 version and in 2010 accordingly – 2.0 version.
In the course of 2011 Latvia's National SEPA plan has been updated according to the changes in the SEPA project. On 17 January 2012, the MPSWG approved Latvia's National SEPA Plan, Version 3.0 and high level SEPA implementation measures to be incorporated into Annex 1 "Action Plan for Introduction of the Single European Currency in Latvia" to Latvia's National Euro Changeover Plan.
The summary of Latvia's National SEPA Plan (
82 KB) focuses on the following issues: support extended by all SEPA project stakeholders and their public commitments regarding the implementation of SEPA project in Latvia.
Latvia's National SEPA Plan, Version 3.0 (full document, 764 KB).
In 2010 the SEPA communication experts' meetings has been organised and drafted the communication plan which is to be harmonised with the Euro Project's communication developments. In 2010 the SEPA Cards Framework Sub-Group commenced its work. In 2011 National SEPA Working Group has actively commented the SEPA Regulation and worked on the topical issues of the European Forum on the Security of Retail Payments.
In 2012, the National SEPA Working Group will continue to coordinate the SEPA Project, including the overall implementation of standards in the customer–to–bank and bank–to–customer domains and applying security standards to the points of sale in the second domain of SEPA Card Framework. The NSWG will also implement further measures for the execution of communication plan. Currently each institution and company involved in SEPA Project proceeds with the respective preparatory work in line with the individual SEPA plans.
At the end of 2011, the organisational chart of the SEPA project was as follows.
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SEPA Steering |
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SEPA Coordination Commitee |
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Market Demand Side
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Market Supply Side
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Payment Cards Committee of the Association of Latvian Commercial Banks |
Last updated: 02.02.2012. 11:48
