The move to the new SEPA ACH standards is speeding up, but there is a considerable way to go to achieve 100% SEPA compliant payments. There are huge country variations.

SEPA Credit Transfers
Overall, the penetration of SEPA Credit Transfer is 90%+, but this hides quite large differences between the countries, as table shows:

Source & Copyright©2014 - ECB 

SEPA Direct Debits
Overall, the penetration of SEPA Direct Debits is 70%+, but this hides even greater differences between the countries which range from 15% in Spain to 73% in France, as table shows:

Source & Copyright©2014 - ECB 

Meeting the country announced closing dates
Spain announced that they were turning off their legacy credit transfer system yesterday (March 17th) which theoretically would have required them in eight weeks to increase in from 83% SCT penetration to 100% - possible, and the legacy direct debit system on 9 June, requiring SEPA Direct Debit usage to grow from 15% SDD penetration to 100% - unlikely. 

Belgium and Ireland have announced that on March 31st both the credit transfer and direct debit legacy system which requires:

• Belgium needs to increase their use of SCT by 13% in two months - possible, and increase use of SDD by 36% - difficult
• Ireland needs to increase their use of SCT by 39% in two months - difficult, and increase use of SDD by 39% - also difficult

If a country has not achieved full migration, all the authorities need to do is to keep the legacy systems open until they have achieved 100%. Surely, that is going to happen in Spain, Portugal and Italy?