As part of the rulebook evolution of the Single Euro Payments Area ( ) Credit Transfer ( ), the Instant Credit Transfer ( ), the Direct Debit Core ( ) and the Business-to-Business ( ) schemes, and in line with its commitment to stakeholders’ involvement, the European Payments Council ( ) launches today the public consultation on possible modifications to these schemes.
All Payment Service Providers (
), end users and technical players can participate in the public consultation during this three-month period. This public consultation is held to ensure that the
schemes reflect the evolution of the needs of
and their customers, as well as technological changes.
An earlier call for change requests to amend the rulebooks – the technical and business rules governing the schemes and followed by their participants – ended at the end of December 2017. The
has registered 43 change requests from various banking and stakeholder communities, including from the
itself. All are included in the public consultation.
Examples of change requests include:
- A significant number of proposals were made to the
and
rulebooks in particular. A number of
change requests relate to the extension in characters of structured and unstructured remittance information and the combination of different types of such information. The
itself is proposing a separate annexe to the
rulebook supporting these extensions in remittance information as a scheme option.
- Another proposal is to include an automated repayment service in the
and
schemes to enable the beneficiary to reimburse the originator either in full or in part. Only the beneficiary would be able to initiate this repayment transaction.
- As for the scheme, one proposal would give participants as third rulebook option to agree upon a shorter hard time-out deadline. Another change request outlines options for handling hits due to anti-money laundering, embargo and counter-terrorist financing measures.
Detailed information about the change requests is available in the “Related documents” below.
How to participate in the public consultation?
Stakeholders wishing to comment on the change requests can fill in the response templates (available for each scheme in the below links), and send them to [email protected], until 10 June 2018 at 17h00 CET at the latest. Feedback received after this specific date and time will not be considered.
What will happen after the public consultation?
Change requests that find broad acceptance in the overall payment community, and that are technically and legally feasible, will be taken forward. In order that the schemes evolve in line with the requirements of the majority of all market participants, the change requests lacking a broad support will be dropped.
In November 2018,
will publish the updated rulebooks and implementation guidelines that will enter into force one year later. This will ensure enough time is left for scheme participants to implement the necessary changes in their systems.
Related documents:
SEPA Credit Transfer Rulebook Change Request Consultation Document and Response Template
SEPA Instant Credit Transfer Rulebook Change Request Consultation Document and Response Template
SEPA Direct Debit Core Rulebook Change Request Consultation Document and Response Template
SEPA Direct Debit Business to Business Rulebook Change Request Consultation Document and Response Template
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