Potential disruptions ahead this weekend effecting ALL EU Banks for SEPA Payments across Europe
Potential disruptions ahead this weekend for ALL EU Banks and financial institutions for SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) Payments across Europe as the four SEPA Payments schemes (which include SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst), SDD Business-to-Business, the SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) and the SEPA Direct Debit Core (SDD Core)) migrate to the 2019 version of the ISO 20022-based XML messaging standard.
As a result, SEPA payments (Euro payments across the EU) made on Friday 15th March may not be credited to the beneficiary account until the following Monday or Tuesday and may not appear in beneficiary accounts over the weekend as is the case normally.
The move has been closely monitored by The European Payments Council (EPC) and was initially scheduled to take place on 19 November 2023. However, due to operational delays in major SEPA regions and the requirement for additional testing before the migration, the date for the migration was moved upon the recommendation of stakeholders, such as the EPC’s PSMB, to this coming Sunday, 17 March 2024.
All four 2023 SEPA payment scheme rulebooks and their related Implementation Guidelines will become effective this Sunday, 17 March 2024, and thus, the 2021 SEPA payment scheme rulebooks and related IGs will remain in effect up until the implementation date of the 17 March 2023
Further background information:
- There will be a 30-minute downtime period during the migration from 03H00 CET up to 03H30 CET, during which no transactions ( including r-transactions, transaction investigations) or message responses will be possible due to the system migration.
- This migration will affect transactions across much of Europe and the entirety of the SEPA region.
- The European Payments Council has recommended that all those who partake in the SEPA payments scheme make the appropriate preparations in advance of the migration and inform their customers of the changes relating to the updated payment scheme rulebooks.
- Some financial institutions are recommending that any time-sensitive payments be made on 14 March or before the end of the morning on 15 March to ensure they go through on time.
For more information, visit The European Payments Council’s website or contact our team today.
