There are two types of Additional Optional Services (AOS): those proposed by communities of PSPs and those offered by individual PSPs. In both instances, AOS must neither compromise the interoperability of the scheme nor create barriers to competition. When an AOS becomes increasingly popular among scheme participants, the EPC may consider including it in the scheme, in line with the principles governing its evolution.
National or pan-European communities of scheme participants can agree on an AOS that meets the needs of customers in specific geographic areas. One such AOS involves the use of additional data elements in the payment messages based on the ISO 20022 standard.
Any AOS must be transparent to all scheme participants and publicly available to these communities.
The EPC publishes the list of SCT Inst AOS as reported by the concerned communities. However, the EPC is not responsible for the accuracy and exhaustiveness of this list.
Spain – Description of AOS – Returns for SCT Inst for C2R & C2eR use case as technical cancellation
In addition, any PSP is free to propose AOS of its own choice, to enrich its SCT Inst services and distinguish itself from its competitors, as long as these AOS respect the SCT Inst scheme. These AOS are in the competitive space and therefore outside the EPC’s scope.