Information about the NPC approach with regards to the EPC's the SEPA Request-to-Pay Scheme Rulebook
The NPC’s vision is to harmonise payments in the Nordics and towards the euro-zone. In line with this, the NPC has the ambition that the European Payments Council (EPC) SEPA Request-to-Pay (SRTP) Scheme Rulebook can be used for the Nordic region. A pre-requisite for this is that the EPC SEPA Request-to-Pay (SRTP) Scheme Rulebook will become currency agnostic for European currencies. This is now decided and included in the EPC SEPA Request-to-Pay (SRTP) Scheme Rulebook version 2.0, meaning that it can be used for requesting payment initiation in the Nordic currencies Danish Kroner, Swedish Krona and Norwegian Kroner, and any other SEPA area currency.
NPC’s work regarding RTP towards the EPC
The objective for the NPC is to contribute to harmonised payments in the Nordics.
The NPC has a strong commitment to ensure a RTP scheme for the Nordics and for Nordic currencies. Therefore, we have through the Nordic representatives in the EPC contributed to the work designing the SRTP for the Nordic needs.
The most important changes for the NPC and the Nordics have now been incorporated in the EPC SRTP Scheme Rulebook version 2.0:
The NPC has produced a clarification report written to the Nordic actors to further explain the usage of the EPC SRTP Scheme Rulebook.
About the Request-to-Pay function
Requesting a payment in exchange of goods or service can in the future become a standardised foregoing part of a payment transaction. This will happen if the payments markets implement a new scheme for such a request-to-pay. The scheme will allow creditors (“payees”) to request payments from individual debtor (“payers”). This function is therefore called a “Request-to-Pay” (RTP).
A RTP Scheme Rulebook covers the set of operating rules and technical elements (including messages) that allow a payee to request the initiation of a payment from a payer in a wide range of physical or online use cases. The RTP is a messaging functionality. It is not a means of payment or a payment instrument, but a way to request an initiation of a payment.
The common rules and processes, as well as messages standards for RTP, are based on the international standards ISO 20022 and will facilitate payments to create interoperability as well as reachability between the different actors as participants in the Scheme.
To ensure reachability and interoperability between all the actors throughout the whole value chain, the participants in such a Scheme will consist of both PSPs and non-PSPs.
The 4-corner model in the Rulebook allows interoperability by nature and responds to the needs of an end-to-end user experience and “straight-through processing” when requesting a payment and involves multiple RTP service providers and payment networks.
EPC documentation for SRTP Rulebook v2.0
More information regarding the EPC SEPA Request-to-Pay (SRTP) Scheme Rulebook version 2.0 is available on the EPC website, where the updated version is now published.
In addition, a Change Proposal Submission Document is published on the EPC website describing the updates with all the received change requests together with the analysis, recommendation and final decision from the EPC.