The start of a new European payment regime, the Single Euro Payments Area, is just months away. Effective Feb. 1, 2014, SEPA will transform the way businesses make payments in 33 European countries. Yet many companies have yet to switch, raising the possibility of a traffic jam toward year-end as large numbers of corporates all try to migrate at once.

A PWC survey conducted this summer concluded that about a third of companies risk not making the deadline; as of June, about a quarter of the companies PWC surveyed hadn't planned their SEPA implementation. European Central Bank data show that as of July, 50% of credit transfers were occurring in the SEPA format and just 4.8% of direct debits.

Those statistics, particularly the numbers on direct debits, seem alarmingly low, especially since there's general agreement that European regulators are not going to postpone that Feb. 1 deadline to give companies more time.