In addition, SEPA was never free. So OP is also wrong there. The regulation only stipulates "equality of charges", that the bank's fees for a payment into anot

In addition, SEPA was never free. So OP is also wrong there. The regulation only stipulates "equality of charges", that the bank's fees for a payment into another SEPA country/bank must be the same as into the same bank or within the same country [0]. I.e. no payment fee discrimination across SEPA: if my Czech bank X charges me Y for a local EUR payment into X, it must also charge me Y for the same EUR payment into Italy, for example. Would any bank actually charge their customers Y>0 like that? Yes they would. For example the Bank of Cyprus (in Cyprus, which is in both EU & SEPA) will charge you 6 EUR for a SEPA payment of 1200 EUR if the sender is a physical person, and 10 EUR if legal person [1]. And 4 EUR for smaller EUR amounts. Far from "free". [0] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2009/924/oj https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2009/924/oj [1] https://www.bankofcyprus.com/globalassets/cyprus/org_methods/commissions--charges-current/eng/boc-catalogues-ibu-aug-24-eng-joey.pdf https://www.bankofcyprus.com/globalassets/cyprus/org_methods... [PDF]