The ad-hoc multi-stakeholder group on Mobile Initiated (instant) SEPA Credit Transfers (MSG MSCT), which is facilitated by the European Payments Council (EPC), held its 25th and 26th Plenary meetings on 30 September and 20 October 2021 respectively.
During these meetings, the MSG MSCT Plenary received status reports on the work progress concerning the development of a document on standardisation and governance of QR-codes for Instant Payments (IPs) at the POI (based on ERPB/2020/026), that is done in the dedicated work-stream. The document intends to cover two aspects, namely
• The technical standard for QR-codes for IPs at the POI that should be submitted to an Internal Standardisation Body to become an International Standard for which the maintenance could be managed by this International Standardisation Body;
• The registration and issuance of an identifier to the IP service providers (used for routing purposes in the QR-codes for interoperability of IPs) which could be done by a registration authority operated by a third party (possibly under the auspices of an Interoperability Framework for IPs at the POI, ISO or CEN) and the governance of IP service providers, including their eligibility for registration, which should become part of the governance of an Interoperability Framework for IPs at the POI.
The MSG MSCT was also updated on the progress made on the development of “Requirements for consumer selection of preferred payment instrument” made in the joint task force with the European Cards Stakeholders Group. In view of the maturity of IPs at the POI, the Plenary agreed that the JTF proceeds with the development of only business requirements, whereas technical and standardisation requirements would need to be covered in a later stage.
The MSG MSCT Plenary was furthermore informed about the outcome of the public consultation on the draft 2nd release of the Mobile Initiated SEPA (Instant) Credit Transfer Interoperability Guidance (MSCT IG – EPC 269-19v1.14). The work-streams started to analyse the comments received and their impact on the document.
Also the impact of the EBA answers received to the questions posted by the MSG MSCT in 2020 to the EBA Q&A tool (2020_5366, 2020_5476 and 2020_5477) on the MSCT IG and on the new QR-code document under development was debated.
The MSG MSCT further agreed to update their MSCT roadmap, originally developed in 2020 and started the review of this document. In view of the priorities set in this document, the MSG MSCT also decided to prepare a new request for a mandate extension for submission to the EPC Board in November 2021.