European Payments Council (EPC)
More info
- Released
- 2002
- Headquarters
- Brussels
- Type
- Industry body
- Website
- europeanpaymentscouncil.eu
The banks' own body for European payment rules, which writes the rulebooks behind SEPA credit transfers and euro direct debits.
The banks set up the EPC in 2002, preferring to coordinate among themselves rather than wait for the European Commission to do it for them. It owns no systems and moves no money. What it produces are schemes: the SCT credit transfer, the SCT Inst instant transfer and the SDD Core and SDD B2B direct debits. The rulebooks specify which fields a message must carry, which deadlines apply and who is liable when things go wrong.
More recently the EPC has written schemes for Request to Pay and for Verification of Payee, the name check the EU made mandatory in 2025. The EPC QR code printed on invoices in Germany and Austria comes from here too. The legal requirements come from Brussels, but it is usually the EPC that decides what they look like in practice.