30 November 2012

EPC: New versions of SEPA rulebooks published

The European Payments Council released updated versions of the SEPA Credit Transfer Rulebook Version 7.0; the SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) Core Rulebook Version 7.0; the SDD Business to Business Rulebook Version 5.0; and the Associated Implementation Guidelines.

The annual EPC scheme change management process is based on the following principles:

• Any stakeholder may introduce suggestions for changes to the SCT and SDD Rulebooks.
• All suggestions for changes to the rulebooks are evaluated by the EPC Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) Payment Schemes Working Group (SPS WG) and are consolidated into a single change request per rulebook. This year, the change requests were released on 16 May 2012 for the annual three-month public consultation.
• Proposed changes detailed in the change requests, which are broadly accepted by all stakeholders, are taken forward.

Together with the SCT Rulebook version 7.0, SDD Core Rulebook version 7.0 and SDD B2B Rulebook version 5.0, the EPC published the feedback received from stakeholders during the 2012 public consultation on the evolution of the schemes.

The updated versions of the SDD Rulebooks have been amended to make it optional to provide the BIC of the payer's bank with the mandate except if the mandate is issued in an EU Member State which opts to make use of the derogation permissible under Article 16 (6) with regard to national transactions. The updated version of the SCT Rulebook was also amended to specify that the BIC has to be provided in line with the provisions of the SEPA Regulation.

To improve straight-through-processing (STP) of SCT payments further, the SCT Rulebook version 7.0 includes two additional reject reason codes which specify why a SCT payment was not accepted:

• originator bank not registered under this BIC with the clearing and settlement mechanism (CSM);
• beneficiary bank not registered under this BIC with the CSM.

The SDD Core Rulebook version 7.0 and the SDD B2B Rulebook version 5.0 have been amended to make the provision of the payer's address optional with a paper-based mandate, the dematerialised mandate as well as with e-mandates and with the optional Advance Mandate Information (AMI) procedure. The SDD Core Rulebook version 7.0 and the SDD B2B Rulebook version 5.0 have been updated to clarify that, subject to national legal regime, it is permissible to store mandates in digitised form and the use of electronic signatures is allowed under the SDD Schemes. As was done for the SCT Rulebook version 7.0, the updated versions of the SDD Core and SDD B2B Rulebooks have been enhanced to include these two additional reject reason codes:

• debtor bank not registered under this BIC with the CSM;
• creditor bank not registered under this BIC with the CSM.

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