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In November 2012, the European Payments Council (EPC) published the SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) Rulebook version 7.0, the SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) Core Rulebook version 7.0, the SDD Business to Business (B2B) Rulebook version 5.0 and associated implementation guidelines (IGs). Based on the established release management cycle, the rulebook versions published in November 2012, would normally take effect on 16 November 2013.
Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) stakeholders in the euro area however, are currently working towards achieving compliance with the 'Regulation (EU) No 260/2012 establishing technical and business requirements for credit transfers and direct debits in euro' (the SEPA Regulation), which defines 1 February 2014 as the deadline in the euro area for compliance with the core provisions of this Regulation.
Effectively, this means that as of this date, existing national euro credit transfer and direct debit schemes will be replaced by SCT and SDD. As a result the EPC decided to postpone the effective date for the SCT Rulebook version 7.0, the SDD Core Rulebook version 7.0 and the SDD B2B Rulebook version 5.0 and associated IGs, from 16 November 2013 to 1 February 2014.
Based on the established scheme change management cycle, the EPC would normally publish the next version of the rulebooks, i.e. the SCT Rulebook version 8.0, the SDD Core Rulebook version 8.0 and the SDD B2B Rulebook version 6.0, in November 2013 to take effect in November 2014. This would however force stakeholders to update systems and operations twice within one year considering that the rulebook versions published in November 2012 will take effect on 1 February 2014.
To avoid duplication of costs and efforts within one year and to provide planning security to all stakeholders based on stable rulebook versions in the period following migration to SCT and SDD in the euro area, the EPC decided in December 2012 to postpone publication of the next generation rulebooks (SCT Rulebook version 8.0, SDD Core Rulebook version 8.0, SDD B2B Rulebook version 6.0) and associated IGs to November 2014. These rulebook versions will then take effect in November 2015. The process leading to publication of new rulebook versions will therefore roll out at the start of 2014.