EPC payment scheme participants and their technical service providers will have less time available to implement the 2025 EPC payment scheme rulebooks compared to a normal EPC payment scheme rulebook release and implementation cycle.
In light of recent regulatory developments outlined below, the Payment Scheme Management Board (PSMB) of the European Payments Council (EPC) has decided to revise the entry-into-force dates of the 2025 rulebooks for the SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT), SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst), SEPA Direct Debit Core (SDD Core), SEPA Direct Debit B2B (SDD B2B) and One-Leg Out Instant Credit Transfer (OCT Inst) schemes. The version 1.0 of the Verification of Payee (VOP) scheme will have the same entry-into-force date.
More details on the publication and entry-into-force timelines for these rulebooks are given below.
Regulatory developments
On 19 March 2024, the Regulation (EU) 2024/886 of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulations (EU) No 260/2012 and (EU) 2021/1230 and Directives 98/26/EC and (EU) 2015/2366 as regards instant credit transfers in euro, also known as the Instant Payments Regulation (“IPR”), was published in the Official Journal of the EU.
The IPR entered into force on 8 April 2024 and sets out several obligations for Payment Service Providers (PSPs) based in the European Economic Area (EEA)1 whereby some of them already enter into force for eurozone-based PSPs (other than Payment Institutions (PIs) and Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs)) on 9 January 2025 and 9 October 2025 respectively.
Timeline
Given these regulatory deadlines for existing and future SCT Inst scheme participants, and with the public consultations on the proposed VOP scheme rulebook, the proposed EPC recommendations for the matching processes under the VOP scheme rulebook and the five EPC payment scheme rulebooks approaching their end, the PSMB of the EPC has decided that:
. Version 1.0 of the VOP scheme rulebook and the related VOP API scheme specifications will be published in September 2024.
. The 2025 SCT Inst scheme rulebook and the related implementation guidelines will include the regulatory changes stemming from the IPR, and will be published in November 2024.
The 2025 SCT Inst scheme rulebook will be published at the same time as the 2025 rulebooks and the related implementation guidelines of the four other EPC payment schemes (i.e. SCT, SDD Core, SDD B2B and OCT Inst).
. The entry-into-force date of all five 2025 EPC payment scheme rulebooks and of version 1.0 of the VOP scheme rulebook will be Sunday 5 October 2025.
This entry-into-force date has been chosen to allow PSPs to comply with the relevant implementation deadlines set forth under the IPR. Selecting the same entry-into-force date for all six EPC schemes concerned is aimed at facilitating the implementation preparation for PSPs, Clearing and Settlement Mechanisms (CSMs) and other technical service providers.
The PSMB stresses that all EPC payment scheme participants and their technical service providers will have less time available to implement the 2025 EPC payment scheme rulebooks compared to a normal EPC payment scheme rulebook release and implementation cycle.
Therefore, the PSMB urges the EPC payment scheme participants to already plan and budget for such shorter implementation timeline in their 2025 work plans and budgets, and to immediately discuss possible actions with their technical service providers on how to meet the relevant implementation deadline.
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1The EEA covers the 27 EU member states, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
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