The

VOLUME

What is it?

The primary focus of the work of the EPSG is the 'SEPA Payments Standardisation Volume'.

Ultimately designed to support and promote European Payments Standardisation for the benefit of Payment Service Users in Europe (such as payers and payees), it provides common standardisation requirements for SEPA, which need to be adopted with a high priority in order to achieve that goal.

Developed and agreed by all relevant sectors active in payments in Europe, it demonstrates a strong self-commitment of the European stakeholders within the payment ecosystem and is well recognised by the European Central Bank and the European Commission.

Purpose of The Volume

In accordance with the vision of Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), the purpose of The VOLUME is to enable pay-ment standardisation and promote payments interoperability in a secure environment throughout SEPA.

The VOLUME aims to do this by defining a set of harmonised SEPA requirements (’SEPA Payments Standards’) ap-plicable to card-based and instant payments, in both face to face and remote environments.

Currently, the VOLUME is composed of a set of books that cover card-based payments, called the SEPA Card Stand-ardisation Volume. Following the expansion of scope of the EPSG beyond card payments at the beginning of 2023, this documentation is being completed to define SEPA requirements in the instant payment domain. Therefore, the next Volume edition (v11) will be issued as SEPA Payments Standardisation (SPS) Volume.

The SCS Volume

The SEPA Card Standardisation Volume has been developed for more than a decade to deliver harmonised SEPA requirements (’SEPA Cards Standards’) applicable to card-based payments, in both face to face and remote envi-ronments.

Whilst the term ‘Cards’ is used, these requirements apply equally to all transactions where a card-based payment instrument is used, regardless of the form factor.

The SEPA Cards Standards of the VOLUME represent the building blocks on which market participants will be able to develop detailed implementation specifications to meet the needs of the various market participants in a competitive environment.

The same level of harmonisation achieved in the Card domain is expected to support the coexistence of different payment methods at the point of sale, enhancing convenience for both customers and merchants. The ongoing work of the EPSG to update the Volume to include cards and instant credit transfers is moving in this direction.

Main objectives of the volume

Consumers

Consumers are able to make payments and withdraw cash throughout SEPA, with the same ease and convenience as in their home country. Thus, they benefit from wider and harmonised acceptance of their payment instruments within SEPA. Payment standardisation leads to increased security, transparency and indirect cost reduction.

Merchants

A wider acceptance of payment instruments across SEPA increases the business opportunities for Merchants for both physical and virtual points of sale. They benefit from a more competitive acquiring and terminal market and are able to choose which schemes to accept and from which acquirer.

Payment Industry

The Payment Industry (schemes, payment service providers, merchants...) can better plan ahead their investments to implement innovations benefiting from synergies based on the standardised requirements of the VOLUME. It allows investment decisions and implementation of the payment industry based on stable SEPA-wide requirements.

Structure of the Volume

The Volume is structured as a set of Books, each describing an important aspect of the harmonised requirements.

The latest version of the Volume is version 10.0 and can be found here.

Life cycle of the Volume.

A new release of the Volume is published every three years:

Year 1 – The new life cycle workplan is agreed initiating the volume update process including:

Inclusion of the previous consultation comments deemed ‘for later’ to be addressed
Innovation aspects are introduced after an assessment process of the EPSG dedicated workgroup, the INNO ET

Year 2 – Update of the affected books in preparation of public consultation
Year 3 – Public consultation, feedback analysis and final version publication

In between the 3-years cycle, the EPSG may publish ‘Bulletins’ highlighting the specific changes that are necessary for one Book or another before the publication of the next volume release version.