SEPA

Information about upcoming EU Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) and SEPA Payments

Important information for corporate customers concerning payee details on invoices 

As we approach October 2025, it's crucial to ensure your invoices are ready for the new instant payment landscape. Here are the key points to consider: 

  • Ensure correct company name: Verify that your company's name on invoices matches the legal/official name associated with your IBAN account. Future payments will involve name and account verification. When the Verification of Payee system returns 'No match' or 'Close match' responses, payers may experience confusion, potentially leading to payment delays.
  • Multi-currency clarity: If you list account numbers in currencies other than EUR on your invoice, please include the currency code at the beginning of each account number. This will help customers choose the relevant account for their transaction.
  • Recommend EUR accounts: Advise customers to use euro-denominated accounts for SEPA payments. If a customer attempts to make a SEPA instant payment to a currency account in Nordea, the transaction will be rejected.
  • SEPA Instant Credit Transfer limitations: Initially, these will only be available for EUR accounts, with currency accounts following later. 

Note: If a customer attempts to make a SEPA instant payment to a currency account in Nordea, the transaction will be rejected. 

 

A new era for European payments 

The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is the largest payments initiative ever undertaken in European Union (EU), currently covering the 36 European countries: the 27 EU Member states (incl. several territories belonging to these countries) plus Andorra, Iceland, Monaco, Norway, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the Vatican City State.

The initiative is driven by the European Payments Council and the aim of SEPA is to harmonise electronic euro payments in Europe and thereby to enable companies, public authorities and individuals to issue and receive payments within countries of the SEPA zone faster, safer and in a more efficient way.  This is achieved upon an agreement on a common set of data (ISO 20022 XML message standard), maximum value days, transparency of charged fees etc. 

 

There are four different euro payment schemes:

SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT)

SCT is an electronic payment from one bank account to another. SCTs can be one-off or recurring payments (for example, a standing order to pay the monthly rent of an apartment or to regularly transfer money to a savings account). Likewise, single or bulk payments (such as one debit from the payer’s account with multiple credits to different beneficiaries) are supported. The deadline for SCT in the euro area was 1st of February, 2014 and for non-euro area the 31st of October, 2016. As of these dates, the existing national euro credit transfer schemes have been replaced by SCT.

SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst)

The SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme, which officially was launched in November 2017, enables euro credit transfers with the funds made available on the account in less than ten seconds at any time and in an area that will progressively span over the 34 SEPA countries.

In 2025 EU Instant Payments Regulation brings new requirements to payment service providers. Regulation mandates that SEPA instant payments are offered by payment service providers on the sending and receiving side 24/7 in real time and to be accessible as traditional SEPA credit transfers. Instant credit transfers are required to have the same fee as normal credit transfers.

SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) and B2B

SDD consists of two services- CORE and B2B. Main target market for Core scheme is retail and private customers, whereas B2B scheme is targeting direct debits between corporates. The main difference between the two services is primarily related to debtor's refund rights, technically the two services are based on the same formats. The deadline for the two SDD schemes in the euro area was 1st of February, 2014 and for non-euro area the 31st of October, 2016. As of these dates, the existing national euro direct debit schemes have been replaced by SDD.

 

SEPA Checklist

  • Analyze your cash flow and payment practices and examine if you are using SEPA payment option where it is possible.
  • Ensure that you have and include your International Bank Account Number (IBAN) and BIC (not compulsory by the scheme, but recommended by Nordea) on all of your company's invoices and other documentation that state your bank requisites.
  • Verify that all invoices issued by your business partners contain IBAN and BIC.
  • For file payments, check that your company's ERP systems are compatible with ISO 20022 XML format (version 3).
 

Technical implementation of SEPA Direct Debit Service

This resource area is designed to provide ERP vendors and IT staff with the necessary information and tools to support the implementation and use of SEPA Direct Debit Service. 

Below you will find information such as service description, implementation guide and test tool. 

 

Your next steps

We can provide you with deep expertise on Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) and SEPA, explaining how your company can further optimize your payment flows and processes and guide you through implementation of these. 

 

Get in touch 

For more information about how we can support your business contact your Nordea adviser.

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