The twin schemes, referred to as the Register of Participants, will provide a list of financial institutions that have signed and agreed to adhere to the Sepa Credit and Direct Debit rules as set out by the EPC. Both schemes form part of the EPC roadmap for the integration of Sepa within the banking community and are slated for introduction in January 2008.

The SCT and SDD initiatives will eventually replace current domestic schemes with common business rules, data sets and standards, and will be used by banks to validate the compliance of counterparties.

Stewart MacKinnon, secretary general of the EPC comments "The Register of Participants will enable the financial community to realise the objectives of not just the SCT and SDD schemes but also of Sepa. With full access to participants, banks will be able to make informed choices in making payments to adhering institutions in Sepa. The Register will help financial institutions to achieve reachability."

Under the proposals, the EPC data will be automatically integrated into CB.Net's BankSearchPlus payments directory and The S€PA Directory, established on behalf of LogicaCMG, both of which link Bank Identifier Codes (BIC) to International Bank Account Numbers for straight-through routing of payments data flows across European borders.

CB.Net has also recently been selected to provide the Euro Banking Association with the central repository for the EBA Priority Payments Scheme.