The multi-stakeholder group on Mobile Initiated (instant) SEPA Credit Transfers (MSG MSCT), which is facilitated by the European Payments Council (EPC), held its 30th and 31st Plenary meetings on 21 March and 29 April 2022 respectively.
According to their mandate extension (MSG MSCT 128-21) and following the MSCT roadmap (MSG MSCT 089-20v2.0), the MSG MSCT started further work on the interoperability of MSCTs based on Near Field Communication (NFC) or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). A dedicated work-stream is currently analysing MSCT use cases based on one of these proximity technologies using the following criteria: PSU1 usability, technology (including innovation), security, ubiquity and compliance with applicable regulations. They are also trying to gather information on experiences from mobile payment service providers that have piloted or developed a proof of concept using these technologies for account-based payments.
The MSG MSCT started the processing of the comments received through the public consultation on the document Standardisation of QR-codes2 for MSCTs (EC024-22) which closed on 14 April 2022. The new document standardises a payee- and a payer-presented QR-code for all types of MSCTs, i.e. all payment contexts (person-to-person (P2P), consumer-to-business (C2B), and business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C)) while addressing both SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) and SCT payments.
The MSG MSCT also evaluated two potential options with respect to a further international standardisation of a QR-code for (instant) credit transfers based on EPC024-22, namely ISO3 Technical Committee 68 / Sub-Committee 9: Financial services - Information exchange for financial services and CEN4.
1 Payment Service User
2 Quick-Response Codes
3 International Standardization Organization
4 The European Committee for Standardization