Glossary

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AOS
AOS stands for Additional Optional Services. These are services that banks can offer in addition to SEPA products. The EPC is allowing banks to offer Additional Optional Services to enhance their basic SEPA products.

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BIC
BIC is an international standard. It stands for Bank Identifier Code. To facilitate straight through processing, all SEPA payments will require an International Bank Account Number (IBAN) and a BIC code.

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CSM
SEPA Clearing & Settlement Mechanism
The SEPA CSM is the infrastructure through which electronic payments made within the SEPA area will be routed and cleared.  The clearing mechanism will be based on the principle of a Pan-European Automated Clearing House (PE ACH).  This PE ACH requires payments to be presented in a particular format, using Bank Identification Code (BIC) and International Bank Account Number (IBAN) as the exclusive payment identifiers.

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EACT
The European Association of Corporate Treasurers (EACT) is a trade group representing 2500 companies.

EMV
The abbreviation EMV is short for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, which developed the international standard for card payments. Payment cards with a magnetic strip will be replaced with new chip cards that comply with the EMV standard throughout the world over the next few years.

EPC
The European banking industry created the European Payment Council (EPC) to develop and implement SEPA on a self regulatory basis. Banks are committed to delivering SEPA products and services based on EPC Rulebooks and Frameworks by 1January 2008. ING is a founding member of EPC and is participating in many EPC working groups.

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IBAN
The International Bank Account Number (IBAN) is an international standard for identifying bank accounts across national borders. To facilitate straight through processing, all SEPA payments will require an IBAN and a Bank Identifier Code (BIC).
National migration plans
SEPA products and processes will be introduced by the central banks and bankers? associations in each euro country. They are responsible for creating national migration plans for their respective country. These national migration plans are key to the effective implementation of SEPA.

IPSO
Irish Payment Service Organisation is the representative industry body, the voice and guardian of the payments industry and the strategic interface with all payments stakeholders. Its fundamental principles are to preserve the integrity and security of the payment systems and to promote and oversee the strategic development of such systems in the interest of the industry and the general public.

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NASO
National Adherence Support Organisation who?s role is to provide  a link between proposed participants to the SEPA Credit Transfer scheme and the EPC.  IPSO will act as the first point of contact regarding SEPA issues and will facilitate the adherence administrative process.

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PE ACH
Pan-European Automated Clearing House.  This PE ACH requires payments to be presented in a particular format, using Bank Identification Code (BIC) and International Bank Account Number (IBAN) as the exclusive payment identifiers.
It is envisaged that there will be a small number of PE ACH service providers within SEPA.  These will be wholly interoperable, and will provide a seamless electronic payments clearing infrastructure across the SEPA zone, all supporting the SEPA Credit Transfers Scheme and the SEPA Direct Debits Scheme.

PSD
PSD stands for Payment Services Directive. This provides the legal framework on which SEPA products will be constructed. This framework has to be implemented in the national laws of each participating country.

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UNIFI XML
The new SEPA instruments are based on Extended Mark-up Language (XML) standards. They provide a uniform method for describing and exchanging structured data thus enabling full interoperability between parties. XML will improve the efficiency of IT developments and end-to-end STP. XML will be required in the bank-to-bank environment and recommended in the bank to client environment for means of reporting. 

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