On 21 February 2022, the European Payments Council (ECP) published an updated version of its 2019 guidance on, Mobile Initiated SEPA (Instant) Credit Transfer Payments and Technical Interoperability.

The updated guidance was prepared after a public consultation that took place last year and includes various updates to chapters to take into account market and technical developments. It also sets out new work on Mobile Initiated SEPA (Instant) Credit Transfers (MSCT) interoperability with respect to unsuccessful and R-transactions (refunds, returns, rejects, refusals and reversals) and on MSCT technical interoperability messages. It has also been aligned with the document on Standardisation and governance of QR codes for Instant Payments at the Point of Interaction.

The document aims through the description of MSCT use cases to provide an insight into the main issues related to the initiation of (instant) SEPA credit transfers for different payment contexts such as person-to-person, consumer-to-business (retail payments including both in-store and m-commerce payments) and business-to-business payments. It also focuses on the technology and security used in the customer-to-Account Servicing Payment Service Provider space, since the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer and SCT transactions have already been specified in the respective SEPA scheme rulebooks. The guidance specifies various security guidelines for MSCTs and analyses and specifies the technical interoperability of MSCTs based on payee- or payer-presented data. It further specifies the minimum data sets for all interoperability messages between the respective MSCT service providers of the payer and the payee. Additional interoperability models including a Payment Initiation Service Provider or a Collecting PSP (on behalf of the merchant) are also included. The document also identifies the main interoperability challenges but also opportunities for MSCTs.