Annexes to COM(2017)683 - Application of Regulation EU n°260/2012 establishing technical and business requirements for credit transfers and direct debits in euro

Please note

This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.

dossier COM(2017)683 - Application of Regulation EU n°260/2012 establishing technical and business requirements for credit transfers and direct ...
document COM(2017)683 EN
date November 23, 2017
Annex.

3.Conclusion and next steps for the SEPA project

Overall, the SEPA Regulation has been correctly applied and implemented across the EU. There is currently no need for any follow-up legislative proposal. However, a few issues that have been addressed will continue to be closely monitored to ensure they are definitively tackled, in particular IBAN discrimination.

SCTs and SDDs have given European citizens an effective way to make credit transfers and direct debits in euro within the European Union. Based on this standard, new players have emerged on the payments market, offering payment initiation services and peer-to-peer mobile payments. Also, the emergence of new types of players can be expected thanks to the revised Payments Services Directive and the development of new projects within SEPA, such as SEPA instant payments that will be available as of November 2017.

These developments are supported by the Euro Retail Payments Board, an ECB-chaired body. This new entity, which replaced the former SEPA Council, aims at fostering the development of an integrated, innovative and competitive market for retail payments in euro in the European Union. It is composed of members from both the supply side of the market (banking community, payment institutions and e-money institutions) and the demand side of the market (consumers, retailers, online retailers, businesses/corporates, SMEs and national public administrations). In addition, five national central banks representing the Eurosystem and one representing the non-euro area community take part in the meetings on a rotating basis. The European Commission attends as an observer.

National SEPA committees and their European Forum set up by the Commission have played a key role in implementing the Single Euro Payments Area and in achieving the goal of allowing Europeans to do all their transactions in euro anywhere in the EU from a single account. While the SEPA transition is now almost completed, the transformation of payment systems is still on-going at a fast pace. Most of the national SEPA committees have been transformed into national payments committees/councils to steer this transformation. These national payments committees/councils now focus on new challenges, such as the transition to instant payments or mobile payments. Moreover, with the entry into force of PSD2 in January 2018, the national committees will have to monitor other developments and notably the arrival of new players on the payments market, such as account information aggregators and payment initiation service providers.

In order to support these new developments in the field of payments, to coordinate national initiatives and exchange information and best practices, the Commission is examining, in close cooperation with the European Central Bank, how the EU Forum of national SEPA committees can be transformed into a platform for these reformed national payment committees/councils.

(1) http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=celex%3A32012R0260  
(2) Figures as of 31 September 2016. All payment services providers (PSPs) have confirmed their readiness for compliance by October 31, 2016, which should be reflected in the finalised statistics for SCT for Q4 of 2016 – not yet available
(3) Most requirements have been implemented. However, four institutions in Romania appear to be only partially compliant.
(4) One particular type of credit transfer service, so-called utility payments, is still in transition from legacy practices to SEPA requirements. Utility payments are addressed to utility providers and require additional data for payment reconciliation and consumption readings. According to inter-sectoral agreement between PSPs and utility providers, utility payments are to migrate to SEPA credit transfers by 1 April 2017.
(5) Not relevant as only one bank has adhered to a SEPA Direct debit scheme (SDD B2B scheme).
(6) Payment service providers in the Republic of Croatia do not provide direct debit services in euro.
(7) National direct debits were replaced by SEPA credit transfers combined with e-invoices
(8) Very low use of SEPA Direct Debits. National direct debits were replaced by SEPA Credit Transfer combined with e-invoices but banks remain reachable for SDD.
(9) Only one payment service provider offers SDD services
(10) Not relevant as only very few SDD processed
(11) Except for data marked "December 2016", all data for tables 3 to 6 are extracted from ECB tables available on the ECB website - http://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/retpaym/paymint/indicators/html/index.en.html  
(12) Lithuania joined the euro area on 1 January 2015 and had until the 1 January 2016 to migrate all euro credit transfers.
(13) Latvia had until 1 January 2015 to migrate. Latvia replaced legacy direct debits with SCT-based e-invoicing solutions
(14) In the UK, the ‘Payments in Euro (Credit Transfers and Direct Debits) Regulations 2012’ were laid before Parliament on 18 December 2012 and came into force on 15 January 2013. Article 19 of these Regulations states what derogations were applied. Regulation 19 provides for the derogation under Article 16(3) and (4) of the SEPA Regulation to apply in relation to the requirements of Articles 8(2) and (3) of that Regulation until 1st February 2016. The derogations under Article 16(2) and (8), applying to non-euro Member States, mean that the requirements of Articles 3, 4 and 5 of the SEPA Regulation did not apply until 31 October 2016. Essentially this meant that, for most requirements, PSPs located in the UK were set a migration end date of 31 October 2016.
(15) Some credit insitutions in Estonia still provide the services for conversion from BBAN to IBAN
(16) Poland, Latvia, Greece