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We recently organised on our website a poll open to all, in which we asked the following question: ‘When do you think the critical mass of SEPA Instant Credit Transfer transactions will be reached across Europe?’ The results show the confidence of European payment professionals that this new scheme...

The European Commission published the long awaited final Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on strong customer authentication (SCA) and common and secure open standards of communication, on 27 November 2017. These RTS, initially drafted by the European Banking Authority (EBA), are instrumental in the...

The Euro Retail Payments Board (ERPB – a high-level body chaired by the European Central Bank and gathering the supply and demand sides of European retail payments) held its latest meeting on 29 November. Several of the hottest payment topics of the moment were discussed at this meeting. The EPC...

The SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme has been operational for just a few days, yet the nearly 600 payment service providers (PSPs) who now offer SCT Inst-based services have been working hard for the last year to make these services a reality. With 86 PSPs on board, Spain is one of the...

The SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme created by the European Payments Council is operational. As of today, nearly 600 payment service providers (PSPs) from eight European countries are offering instant payment solutions based on SCT Inst.  Transferring money in less than ten seconds The...

The European Payments Council’s Compliance and Adherence Committee (CAC – the body responsible for the compliance functions of scheme management) and the Appeals Committee (the body responsible for handling appeals brought in respect of decisions taken by the CAC) will be renewed in 2018. For each...

The settlement of SEPA transactions (one of the behind-the-scenes processes that enables the transfer of funds from one payment service provider (PSP) to another) is a key factor for the success of SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) transactions. With only a few weeks before the SCT Inst scheme...

The EPC launches today a three-month public consultation on the Mobile Contactless SEPA Card Payments Implementation Interoperability Guidelines (MCP IIGs). These guidelines aim to be a reference for all stakeholders working on mobile contactless payments in Europe (based on card payments). In our...

Among the several European countries which have already developed a national instant payments scheme, the UK is one of the most advanced, with over 125 million instant transactions each month (based on the credit transfer instrument). While the EPC’s SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme will...

Today the EPC publishes updated rulebook versions for all its SEPA payment schemes: the SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT), SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst), SEPA Direct Debit Core (SDD Core) and SEPA Direct Debit Business-to-Business (SDD B2B) schemes. All updated 2017 rulebooks enter into force on...

With just a few weeks to go before the first SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) transactions can be processed, all payment service providers (PSPs) who will be ready on 21 November are now officially registered as scheme participants.  There are nearly 600 PSPs (585 exactly), from eight...

We have gathered a selection of recent and free reports on payments and which might interest professionals working in the industry. Fintech, instant payments, the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2), open banking, cybersecurity… Find out more about the latest researches on these hot topics. The...

With more than a month to go before the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme is live, we were eager to hear the lessons learnt by one of Europe’s frontrunners in instant payments, Denmark. We interviewed Kristian Ring from Finance Denmark, and he explained the reasons for card payments’ (including...

While the average number of card transactions per capita and per year in the European Union (EU) is 90, it is only 50 in Greece, which places the country among the Member States most attached to cash. However, due to both government demands to reduce cash use in the country, and to the growing appetite...

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. In July the Open Banking Implementation Entity released specifications for the ‘Read/Write’ payment initiation and account information Application Programming Interfaces...

The EPC published the list of the first payment service providers (PSPs) that have announced their readiness for the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme on 21 November. 134 PSPs from four countries (Austria, Estonia, Latvia and Spain) have already adhered to this new scheme, which will...

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council. In recent years, blockchain technology has significantly gained popularity because it has the potential to process financial transactions in ‘real time’ without compromising...

We recently ran on our website a poll on the forthcoming SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme. We asked the following question: “In your opinion, for which situation would the SCT Inst scheme be the most useful?”. The results are clear: nearly half of the voters (48 percent) think...

In less than five months, the EPC’s SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme will be operational. The implementation of this new and optional scheme – the exact starting date of which is 21 November 2017 – is a hot topic within the European payment community. It is also a challenging one, as the...

The revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) was adopted with payment innovation and safety to the fore. One of its purposes is to regulate at the European Union (EU) level practices and players currently unregulated in the EU. Among other things, PSD2 regulates the role of Payment Initiation Services...