Payments Council picks Swift for SEPA Only services
The UK’s Payments Council has selected Swift to build the country’s new central infrastructure platform in preparation for the next phase of SEPA regulation in 2016.
The SEPA IBAN Only regulation – EC 260/2012 – requires the accurate derivation of BICs from IBANs, for financial institutions in SEPA wishing to initiate euro payments to the UK once comes into force in 2016.
The Payments Council has opted for the provision of an automated central infrastructure platform for collection and maintenance of UK-specific SEPA routing data. Through this public platform, financial institutions in the UK will be able to publish and maintain at any time SEPA routing data specific to their organisation.
The infrastructure will build on elements of Swift’s reference data utility, SWIFTRef, which is currently used by more than 5,500 financial institutions and 500 corporates globally. From an architectural, software and data management perspective, the UK platform will also accommodate the growth of new services and.
Maurice Cleaves, interim chief executive of the Payments Council, said: “Efficient and cost-effective SEPA compliance is a key priority for all players in the SEPA zone and, at the same time, an operational challenge for UK financial institutions. We believe the new platform enabled by Swift will deliver significant benefits by easing data management and ensuring accurate euro-payments routing to our community.”
