In banking, the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) describes a Europe-wide project facilitating a payment area for transactions made in euro. Customers in this area should no longer notice any difference between national and cross-border payments.
Participants in SEPA include the member states of the European Union and other states that do not (yet) use the euro as their country currency.

Before the introduction of SEPA, direct debits within Germany could only be drawn from the payer's account at a domestic bank (via the DTAUS/IZV channel) or transfers could only be made to such accounts. The SEPA direct debit and the SEPA credit now enables direct debits to be drawn from accounts in the rest of Europe (i.e. from SEPA countries) or payments to be made in favor of such accounts.

For direct debits, the payer has to grant the creditor permission to withdraw payment from its account. If this is used in the application, as a rule the creditor is the bank that deploys the application. Mandate data is a part of the message.

The credit note via SEPA can be made to any given accounts in the SEPA region. No mandate is required to this end; only the IBAN and BIC of the account need to be known.

SEPA messages are created in XML format, with distinctions made in the message content of a direct debit between first time and subsequent use of the SEPA account.

Before a payer's account at a bank abroad can be debited using SEPA direct debit, this account needs to be stored in the “'Accounts” static data. The fields are to be filled in as follows:

• “Account owner” is the payer
• Account “type” 'SPA' = SEPA account
• “Currency” = EUR
• Number of the “account” to be debited
• The account is “served by” the payer's bank that holds the account in its books. This bank also has to be stored as a party.
• Enter the “IBAN” for the account
• Account “holder” is the payer
• for accounts that are also to be available for direct debits
  • “Available for” 'Debit and Credit' or 'only Credit'
  • Reference of the “mandate”
  • “Advance Pre-Notification” in days
  • “Send Pre-Notification” yes or no
  • Enter the “date from” when the mandate applies
  • For new accounts, the “status” level is to be set to 'First usage'
  • The “Service ID” is to be selected in line with the mandate granted
• for accounts that are only to be available for direct debits
  • “Available for” 'Credit only'
  • Mandate fields are not to be completed

For credit notes, the account data can also be entered directly as part of processing.

SEPA accounts also have to be stored for the bank's own parties in the static data. The “account owner” and the “party serving the account” is the bank's own party, the account number is one of the bank's accounts used to offset the payments. An “IBAN” also has to be captured for this account.

If the account to be debited is at another bank, there might be collisions with in-house account numbers. In the application, an account number within an entity has to be unique. If account numbers collide, the SEPA account number can be artificially appended with 'SPA', for example, either before or after the actual account number. This account number is solely used for internal purposes on the Settlement/SEPA panel. For SEPA messages, the IBAN will be used. Accounting entries do not make use of this new number. Before introducing SEPA, clarify whether such a code is generally to be used.
This code cannot be used for the bank's own accounts as entries are created and issued for offset accounts that the subsequent accounting system would not recognize.

If the payer's SEPA account is to be debitted in EUR in a payment transaction, the dispo code 'SPD' SEPA debit is to be selected. In account defaulting, a search is made for accounts among the bank's own parties that contain the account type 'SPA'. Accounts found are then displayed.

The SEPA Direct Debit panel displays the payer's 'SPA' accounts for selection. The BIC of the party serving the account is then identified and displayed.

In addition, the SEPA panel also allows for a reference/reason for transfer to be entered.

The message relating to the SEPA direct debit is created in XML format.

The message is exported using the SRVSPA service included in the Workflow.

If the FIRST debit is rejected by the executing system, the status of the account has to be manually reset from 'Follow up' to 'First usage'.

If a SEPA account of the payee is to be credited when processing a credit note in EUR, the dispo code 'SPC' SEPA Credit is to be selected.
In the course of account defaulting, a search is carried out for acounts of the own party with account type 'SPA' and the hits found are displayed.

The SEPA Credit note panel displays the payee's 'SPA' accounts for selection purposes. The BIC of the party serving the account is then identified and displayed.

If an account is to be used that is not stored under static data, the field “Kontonr” (acc. no.) must be cleared; after that the IBAN and BIC can be entered manually.

In addition, the SEPA panel also allows for a reference/reason for transfer to be entered.

The message relating to the SEPA credit note is created in XML format.

The message is exported using the SRVSPA service included in the Workflow.