Instant payments innovation is accelerating across Europe. Are you keeping pace?

The European Payment Council (EPC)’s forthcoming upgrade to SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) is coming. Delayed until March 2024 to allow IT teams with larger financial businesses to prepare, the 2021 SCT Inst rulebook version 1.2 will progress to 2023 SCT Inst rulebook version 1.1.

Empowering financial institutions to seamlessly offer instant payments

To help organisations on their SCT Inst journey keep up-to-date with the latest changes, Iliad Solutions has developed the SCT Inst Testing Solution. An orchestrated version of our proven t3 platform, the Solution empowers financial institutions to securely simulate all types of instant payment journeys included in the 2023 rulebook – across both internal and external ecosystems.

Developing your strategy for SCT Inst implementation

For many financial institutions implementing the EPC’s SEPA instant payments functionality this could be their first working interaction with the ISO 20022 message standard. And if you’re operating on an older system, it’s very much a break from the past.

Consequently, you’ll need to allocate sufficient time and resources to developing an effective approach to implementation. Based on Iliad Solution’s experience of supporting digital transformation at major financial institutions around the world, we have designed a 10-step process for integration with SEPA. The steps are:

1. Know SEPA requirements and how you will join. This will depend on the type of PSP you are, for example, an electronic money institution or a payment institution. You will also need to decide which type of SEPA payment scheme to integrate, such as the SEPA Credit Transfer Scheme, SEPA Instant Credit Transfer Scheme, SEPA Core Direct Debit Scheme, or SEPA Business to Business Direct Debit Mandate.
2. Take time to prepare for implementation – understand what your developer team needs to get on with the job and which parts of your business will be affected.
3. Engage with the industry for insights on best practice and learnings around implementation. Helpfully, the EPC has created a toolkit for new participants. And many major financial institutions and sector media outlets have produced freely available resources on SEPA.
4. Get up to speed on compliance. Existing businesses will fully understand regulatory requirements, however implementation of one or more SEPA schemes will give rise to new compliance considerations.
5. Join SEPA under the relevant participant category.
6. Thoroughly understand security issues and challenges by engaging with any third-party providers of KYC and AML technology. Testing all scenarios is a crucial part of the security process.
7. Educate your staff about your integration with SEPA and how this is going to change and enhance your products. For example, new datasets derived from SEPA schemes could alter certain functions within your organisation, creating new workflows.
8. Ensure certification is done properly and comprehensive testing is completed before you arrive at the certification stage.
9. Progress through approval and launch on SEPA.
10. Evaluate the success of your implementation and make necessary adjustments to frontend and backend processes.

A track record of faster payments innovation

Whether you are planning to integrate or update the SEPA’s SCT Inst payments infrastructure, make sure you can move with confidence. Iliad can help with your testing needs.

With proven expertise in financial services technology, Iliad Solutions is a trusted partner to major financial institutions around the world. And because we’re uniquely platform agnostic, we are well placed to support your instant payment adoption ambitions.

Indeed, since founding in 2001 our specialists have supported organisations large and small to seamlessly integrate the latest banking technology. Major successes include supporting U.S. banks with their adoption of TCH Real-Time Payments, and assisting UK banks to onboard Faster Payments and Pay UK’s NPA initiative.

Our approach works because we understand the financial services industry and develop tailored testing products that meet our clients’ needs. We go beyond simply testing to ensure payments work; our platform leaves no stone unturned, enabling banks to test payment products to destruction upstream and downstream.

Anthony Walton, CEO