High Straight-through Processing (STP) rates and low processing costs are a prerequisite to succeed in the Single European Payments Area (SEPA).
End December 2007, SWIFT will offer two new directories, the BICPlusIBAN Directory and the SEPA Routing Directory, to provide the robust, reliable reference data that financial institutions need to achieve STP.
The BICPlusIBAN Directory enables financial institutions to derive the beneficiary's Bank Identification Code (BIC) from the International Bank Account Number (IBAN) and to validate that the IBAN and the BIC belong to a singular institution. The SEPA Routing Directory includes information on receiving banks that are SEPA compliant and ready to process SEPA payments, and it shows through which channels - Clearing and Settlement Mechanisms (CSMs), Automated Clearing Houses (ACHs) or intermediary banks - it can be reached.
Launch of automated and secure data update service
SWIFT has nearly 30 years of experience in collecting and publishing highly reliable data, such as the ISO BICs. For SEPA, SWIFT currently collects the IBAN- and payment routing-related data from multiple parallel sources such as central banks, banking associations, ACHs and CSMs.
Today SWIFT has opened the SWIFTDirectories Data Update service, a secure and confidential website where financial institutions can maintain their SEPA-related data. Access to this website is open to any appointed employee of a financial institution. Users can register online and update payments related data belonging to their financial institution whenever required. The details of the registration process are explained on the SWIFTDirectories Update web site.
Free registration and maintenance
Registered users of the SWIFTDirectories Data Update service can update their institution's compliance to the SEPA credit transfer and (at a later stage) direct debit schemes, their operational readiness, their participation in ACHs and CSMs, and IBAN related data such as national bank identifiers applied in IBANs (at a later stage) and the BICs that the institution issues with the IBANs.
This service is free of charge. The updated data will be included in the published SWIFT directories. This provides the financial institutions in SEPA a unique opportunity to extend their reach within SEPA and to increase STP of the payments by making the data visible through the SWIFT directories.