In the United Kingdom, Banks can join the Payment market infrastructures for the Pound sterling, but since UK belongs to the SEPA Area, UK Banks can join Euro Payment market infrastructures as well. Which impact does this have on banks in the UK and how can we model that? You will get the answer to […]
Archive | SEPA
SEPA stands for Single Euro Payments Area. It consists of 34 countries where SEPA payments instruments like SEPA Credit Transfer and SEPA Direct Debits are used for funds transfer.
Payment Market Infrastructures in the World – United Kingdom Part I
In our last videos, we spoke about the payment market infrastructures in Sweden. In today’s video, we will consider the payment market infrastructures of the United Kingdom. As before, we first look at the generic model that you can use to study the market infrastructures of your own country.Like Sweden, the UK has its own […]
Secrets to understand Payments Market Infrastructures – Sweden Part 2
In the previous video, we explained how Payment Market Infrastructures are structured anywhere in the world while focusing on the example of Sweden. Swedish banks can join the Payment Market Infrastructures for the Swedish krona, but they can join European Market Infrastructures as well: Which impact does it have on banks and Sweden and how can […]
Secrets to understand Payment Market Infrastructures – Sweden part 1
Is there a secret to easily understand payments systems in any country? Do you know the payment market infrastructures of your country and how they are structured? This is the first of a series of videos where we will examine payment market infrastructures of a few countries in the world. And we begin with Sweden. […]

PSD2 and The New Generation of Third-Party Providers
The revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) went live in January 2018 and is set to have a broad impact on the financial services industry across and beyond Europe. One main goal of the revised PSD2 is to encourage competition by allowing new players, the Third-Party Providers, to enter the European Single Market. The directive removes […]

IBAN number: definition, structure and checker
The IBAN number or simply IBAN (International Bank Account Number) serves as the unique identifier for the bank account in SEPA payments. Debtor and Creditor accounts must be provided therein in IBAN formats. But contrary to what many believe, IBANs are not used everywhere in the world as we will see below. This article begins with […]

SEPA Payments Schemes, Instruments, Initiatives and Messages standards
Simply put, SEPA payments are pan-European payments instruments in Euro, created as results of the SEPA project whose aim is to harmonize standards and practices for electronic and cash payments across the SEPA area. The SEPA area consists of 34 countries out of which some do not use Euro as local currency. If you are […]

SWIFT BIC Code
The SWIFT BIC code is a standardized international identifier (ISO 9362) used in financial messages exchanges. Understanding what the BIC code is fundamental because it is used to identify entities and to route payments messages over SWIFTNet, the SWIFT secure IP Network. What does BIC stand for? and what is the BIC? Does BIC stand for […]

Main differences between SEPA Direct Debit Core and SEPA Direct Debit B2B Schemes
Before considering the differences between SEPA Direct Debit Core and SEPA Direct Debit B2B Schemes, it is worth reminding ourselves what a scheme is. The European Payments Council (EPC) defines a scheme as following: “A payment scheme is a set of rules which Payment Services Providers (PSPs) have agreed upon to execute transactions through a specific […]

Creditor-driven and Debtor-driven Mandate Flows for the SDD
There exists two direct debit models: the Creditor-driven Flow and the Debtor-driven Mandate Flow. The SDD Schemes are based on the first model, the CMF. This article will answer the following questions: What are the direct debit models? What are their main differences? A direct debit model essentially tells us how a mandate is issued […]