The Scheme Technical Player Multi-Stakeholder Group (STP MSG) is a dialogue channel between the European Payments Council (EPC) and representatives of technical players who provide services facilitating the processing of transactions under the EPC’s Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payment schemes and payment-related schemes.
The STP MSG held its first meeting on 3 March 2022. The approved agenda and minutes are available on this page.
During this meeting, the STP MSG agreed on a formal STP MSG position on all EPC payment scheme rulebook change requests which the EPC received by the end of June 2021 and which were subject to a public consultation from September to December 2021.
For defining its position, the STP MSG considered the submitted input from the various stakeholders during the public consultation and the formal change proposals formulated by the EPC working group responsible for the maintenance and the further evolution of the SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) and SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) scheme rulebooks.
The STP MSG further discussed the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme implementation status at that point in time. The main topics were the SCT Inst scheme adherence status and projections, and the prospects and current obstacles for the further use of the SCT Inst scheme by payment end-users.
The STP MSG members also discussed the proposed EPC guidance document about the migration to the 2019 version of the ISO 20022 standard-based XML payment messages defined for the SEPA payment schemes. This migration takes place on 19 November 2023. The STP MSG had a debate about the challenges ahead for Clearing and Settlement Mechanisms (CSMs) and scheme participants especially with respect to the SCT Inst scheme moving to that 2019 version on 19 November 2023 at 08h00 CET.
The STP MSG was also informed about the SCT and SDD r-transaction statistics for the period 2016 to 2021, the internal EPC preparations for the third version of the EPC’s SEPA Request-To-Pay (SRTP) scheme rulebook, and the EPC’s proposed [Instant] Euro One-Leg Out Credit Transfer ([Inst] Euro OCT) arrangement rulebook being subject to a public consultation until 17 April 2022.
There are still vacant seats among some categories within the STP MSG. Further information about the criteria to be a candidate, and how to apply for membership, is available in the Terms of Reference of the STP MSG. Application letters including an up-to-date CV in English should be sent to [email protected].