trades in central bank money, by concentrating securities and cash settlements in euro within an efficient single platform. t2s will act as a catalyst to integrate european post - trading financial services, and will foster competition by providing harmonised access to settlement services within the european financial market. conclusion while the successful development and implementation of all of these systems will involve a significant effort on the part of all those involved, the end result should provide significant benefits to the economy as a whole, as well as to all payment systems users, whether large corporate bodies, or private citizens. to conclude, i hope that i have managed to convey something of the significant changes that are occurring, and will continue to occur, in the arena of payment and settlement systems over the next few years, and in which ireland will play its full part. thank you for your attention. i will now call upon pat mcloughlin, the chief executive of the irish payment services organisation, to say a few words about the launch of sepa.

john hurley : launch of the single euro payments area ( sepa ) address by mr john hurley, governor of the central bank & financial services authority of ireland, on the occasion of the launch of the single euro payments area, dublin, 28 january 2008. * * * introduction ladies and gentlemen, pat mcloughlin, chief executive, of the irish payment services organisation. i am delighted, together with ipso, to welcome you all to the central bank this evening to mark the beginning of a new era for the european payments industry and its customers. sepa, about which you will undoubtedly be hearing a lot more over the next couple of years, is an acronym for the term “ single euro payments area ”, designed to do for electronic payment instruments – such as credit transfers, direct debits and card payments – what the introduction of euro notes and coins in 2002 has already done for cash transactions. so, sepa is the next logical step on the road to completing the internal market following the introduction of the euro. since january 1999, priority or large value payments in euro have been facilitated in a standardised way by the target real - time, gross settlement system operated by eurosystem national central banks. target provides the eurosystem with a means to settle its own monetary policy operations, and also delivers to the european banks a real - time, gross settlement system in central bank money. however, private citizens and businesses in euro - area countries require a comparable facility for making low value – or “ retail ” – non - cash payments in euro. the aim of sepa is to provide all consumers, whether private citizens or corporate bodies, with better payment services and more efficient payment instruments, while at the same time facilitating further european integration by improving competition and innovation in the retail payments market. until now, each euro - area member state ’ s national retail payments market has tended to remain more or less isolated from those of other countries, with levels of efficiency and service varying from place to place. cross - border euro retail payments in particular have, therefore, been less efficient in many respects than comparable payments made within a member state, as payment systems ’ technical standards, rules and procedures vary from country to country. the sepa project following close collaboration within the banking industry in europe, the sepa project officially “ went live ” today, with the formal launch by europe ’ s banks of the sepa credit transfer scheme, the first of the new sepa payment instruments ; over the next