Austrian Payments Council
Tel: +43/1/505 32 80-0
Fax: +43/1/5053280-77
A-1070 Wien, Stiftgasse 15-17/8
office@stuzza.at
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The SEPA implementation
NLF - new legal framework
In the last published draft of the „New Legal Framework for Payments on the Internal Market“ (NLF) by the EU commission (DG Internal Market) the legal outline conditions for the unified payment transaction area are defined. The regulations contained in the NLF are, according to the commission’s and European parliament’s formal order of events, expected to be converted into national law in all countries by 2007.
EPC - European Payments Council
The EPC’s implementation plan has scheduled it from 1.1.2008 that optionally all customers should be able to use the unified instruments. This means being able to transact euro credit transfers and debit entries within the whole SEPA in the same way and technique and in the same formats. The technical rule books for credit transfers and pan-European debit entries have been completed and should be adopted in December 2005.
In the card sector, the EPC has defined the SEPA card framework (SCF), which is to be observed by all banks, operators (currently around 20 different procedures within SEPA) and card processors. The target vision is: „every SCF conforming card on every SCF conforming terminal.
National implementation
The Austrian credit institutes must, in accordance with EPC planning, establish at the beginning of 2006 (as in all other European countries too) how and when they are going to convert appropriately their current payment transactions as well as the currently purely national card system.
By 2008 the new payment transaction instruments must be available to customers. The critical mass of transactions via SEPA products should be reached in 2010. The complete migration of national systems into SEPA payment transactions should take place after that. After 2010 all SEPA bank cards in circulation must be SCF conformative.
By the beginning of 2008 every bank must fulfil the following minimum requirements: on the one hand all payment transaction instruments must be adapted accordingly to the legal guidelines of the NLF and on the other hand the extensive accessibility by means of SEPA products must be ensured („Reachability“).
In Austria there exist good preconditions for this reachability as it is already available today with the entry points of BA-CA, OeNB and RZB for the EBA STEP2-service.
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