EPC News

EPC Blog: Important Notice to All SEPA Stakeholders: Effective Date of Next Versions of SEPA Credit Transfer and SEPA Direct Debit Rulebooks will be 1 February 2014! 26-06-2012

The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payment schemes, as set out in the SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) and SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) Rulebooks, evolve over time to reflect changes in market needs and updates of technical standards developed by international standards bodies, such as the International Organization for Standardization. The European Payments Council (EPC) publishes updated versions of the SCT and SDD Rulebooks once annually in November of each year. Updated versions of the rulebooks normally take effect in November of the following year.

The EPC decided to postpone the effective date for updated rulebook versions to be published in November 2012 from November 2013 to 1 February 2014. This allows market participants sufficient time to adapt their systems and operations to comply both with the 'Regulation (EU) No 260/2012 establishing technical and business requirements for credit transfers and direct debits in euro and amending Regulation (EC) No 924/2009' (the SEPA Regulation) and the updated versions of the rulebooks.

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 SCT and SDD.