It's overhyped, however most countries on the continent are better prepared than good old Ireland.
There will be no big change for consumers at 1st, businesses will see some changes.
One can do IBAN transactions online for no charge from my account in Germany, Sweden, etc.. (One even pays a penality if one don't have an IBAN). So sending is not the problem, it's just a matter of accepting the data in a different format and being able to process it. And these days most banks need IBAN even for transactions in £ or other funny currencies.
Pan-European Direct Debit already exists (it's not cheap and it takes a while to clear but it's there), they now upgrade it to M-PEDD and mid of this year it should be there.
Most countries already have gone rid of their local debit card flavours (remember switch became maestro - german ec cards are now maestro), visa actualy has a pan european debit card solution (v pay) and is deploying it (in turkey and greece for starters of all places).
In some easter european countries I can even make a credit transfer from my Visa card to another persons Visa card these days.
We as irish consumers can only profit from this when our laser card works outside Ireland (well most banks now also have the maestro logo beside the old paper based PTSB), bank transfers from PTSB 33 Main Street to Ulster Bank 25 Main Street will take less than 4 days and i finaly can pay my Spanish Villa's electricity bill form my irish bank account (instead of my Irish Credit card).
It comes down to investments in infrastructure and accepting by the banks that their money making machine (holding our good funds for days) will go away. Funny they now have to invest to make less money, about time.
I can do UK to US transactions online and it's there 5 minutes later but IRL to IRL can take of up to 5 business days....