In the SEPA environment, international standards are required to ensure full automation of the payment process. This is referred to as “straight-through processing” (STP), which means that no manual intervention is needed.
In the SEPA environment, international standards are required to ensure full automation of the payment process. This is referred to as “straight-through processing” (STP), which means that no manual intervention is needed.
IBAN
The International Bank Account Number (IBAN) is the payment account identifier in SEPA, and is created according to the international standard ISO 13616. In order for a SEPA payment to be effected, the payer must provide his/her PSP with the payee’s ΙΒΑΝ. Even for payments between accounts held within the same PSP, the ΙΒΑΝ is exclusively used.
In Greece, the ΙΒΑΝ is composed of 27 alphanumerical characters, with the following structure:
GR 11 ΠΥΠ 1234 0000001234567890, where:
- GR, the country code (two capital letters);
- 11, the check digits (two digits);
- ΠΥΠ, the PSP code (three digits);
- 1234, the branch code (four digits); and
- 0000001234567890, the customer's account number (16 digits - when the account is composed of less than 16 digits, leading zeros are added).
Special applications for checking the validity of an IBAN or for converting a simple payment account number into IBAN are available by the Hellenic Bank Association.
BIC
The PSPs in SEPA are identified by their Business Identifier Code (BIC), which is calculated according to the international standard ISO 9362. The Bank of Greece’s BIC is BNGRGRAA.
No more BIC, only IBAN
Under Regulation (EU) 260/2012, as of 1 February 2016 PSUs are no longer required to indicate the BIC of the payee’s PSP for payment transactions in the form of credit transfers or direct debits. As of February 1 2016, PSUs disclose to their payments service provider only the IBAN of the payee.
It should be noted that PSPs are still required to use the BIC when processing interbank payment transactions.
For this reason, and for the information of every interested party, the following table lists the BICs of PSPs operating in Greece along with the corresponding Bank Identifiers (positions 5-7 of a Greek IBAN).
ISO 20022 XML
The international standard ISO20022 XML provides the format to be used for preparing and transmitting all messages that contain SEPA payment information. It is used:
- between PSPs or PSPs and retail payment system; and
- by PSUs other than consumers or micro enterprises when they initiate or receive batches of credit transfers or direct debits which are not transmitted individually, but are bundled together for transmission, to and from PSPs.