, a European payment system that could make funds transfers between Turkey and Europe faster and cheaper, the T24 news website reported.){kind=link}
Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said on Thursday that Turkey has submitted a letter of intent to join the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), a European payment system that could make funds transfers between Turkey and Europe faster and cheaper, the T24 news website reported.
“This membership will make cross-border payments faster, safer and lower-cost,” Şimşek said after a Turkey-EU High-Level Economic Dialogue meeting in İstanbul with Valdis Dombrovskis, the European commissioner for economy and productivity.
SEPA covers 41 countries and allows people and businesses to make cross-border euro payments under common rules. The system is meant to make euro transfers between participating countries as simple as domestic bank transfers.
Şimşek made the remarks at a joint news conference with Dombrovskis at the Dolmabahçe Presidential Working Office after the meeting.
The latest step follows earlier comments by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who said on Wednesday that Turkey was interested in joining SEPA and that relevant financial institutions were already working on the issue.
Reuters also reported in March that the EU had proposed Turkey’s participation in SEPA as part of an effort to deepen economic ties and reduce the cost of sending money abroad.
Jurgis Vilcinskas, the EU’s chargé d’affaires in Ankara, told Reuters at the time that the proposal was discussed during European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos’s February 6 meeting with Fidan in Ankara.
According to the European Commission, smaller candidate countries that joined SEPA last year — Albania, Moldova, Montenegro and North Macedonia — could together save up to 500 million euros.
Vilcinskas said Turkey’s participation could reduce transfer costs for businesses, consumers and members of the Turkish diaspora in Europe.
Data cited by Reuters showed that sending between 1,000 and 5,000 euros from Europe to Turkey can cost up to 40 euros, depending on the bank and transaction size.
The EU remains Turkey’s largest trading partner, with annual trade exceeding 200 billion euros.
Although Turkey’s EU accession talks have been largely frozen for years, both sides have recently stepped up talks on economic cooperation, migration, customs union modernization and regional security.