The European Commission estimates that the cost of a failed transaction will be EUR 50 on average. This does not include the negative impact on customer and supplier relationships, and any impact on employees who have not been paid their wages/salaries.

The costs could be huge because it may well not be the occasional isolated payment that fails. Experian, the information services company, estimate that 12% or more of EUR denominated payments could contain incorrect data. One-third of the errors are caused by an indicated bank or branch code not being in use; either because the data was not updated after a branch closed or merged with another entity, or because incorrect data was supplied in the first place. Incorrect sets of data can stay in a company's system for years without anyone noticing.

Rejection rates are climbing, and in some clearing rejectioin rates are already 15%+.

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The German Bundesbank has called on banks to not accept the old formats after the end date. Not sure how can they stop banks accepting the old formats until their customers have made the data and systems conversions. But if they do, how much will not being ready for SEPA cost your organisation?