The European Payments Council (EPC) has published a press release reminding Single European Payments Area (SEPA) payment scheme participants to comply with the EU Revised Wire Transfer Regulation (2015/847) (‘revised WTR’).
The aim of the revised WTR is to ensure that cross-border payments involving a UK-based SEPA payment scheme participant continue to be processed smoothly after the end of the Brexit transition period. It does so by requiring additional information to be sent with payments into or from the UK, owing to the fact that since the end of the transition period the UK is now a third country. The required information consists of:
- the full address of the originator for SEPA credit transfers and SEPA instant credit transfer transactions; or
- the full address of the debtor for SEPA direct debits core and SEPA direct debits business to business collections.
The EPC has been informed that not all EEA-based SEPA payment scheme participants are complying with the above information requirements. As a result, it is now urging them to complete the identification of their customers with SEPA transactions involving both a UK and EEA payment account as soon as possible, and to ensure that customers provide the necessary information.