EPC News

EPC Blog: Part II - Get Ready for SEPA by February 2014. Why IBAN and BIC Remain Important for Bank Customers. 15-03-2012

This series of EPC Blogs highlights best practice identified by bank customers who have successfully completed migration to the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). Project managers who have already concluded the migration exercise unanimously recommend that organisations which still have to adapt systems and operations to the SEPA schemes and technical standards become active immediately. Part II of this blog series (see link below) focuses on the transition to the International Bank Account Number (IBAN) and the Business Identifier Code (BIC). The complete series reflects the experience of early movers on the demand side who have shared their lessons learnt in the EPC Newsletter and in the EPC Video 'SEPA for Billers' (see links below).

The European Union (EU) 'Regulation establishing technical and business requirements for credit transfers and direct debits in euro' (the SEPA Regulation), defines 1 February 2014 as the deadline in the euro area for compliance with the core provisions of this Regulation. Effectively, this means that as of this date, existing national euro credit transfer and direct debit schemes will be replaced by SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) and SEPA Direct Debit (SDD).