Phased out since the 1 st of August 2014 for EUR payments inside the SEPA zone. National Format for domestic and international Payments

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1 Since 1st February 2014, SEPA became a reality and succeeded in harmonising the European payment landscape. However, in order to support strong local market practices, some local flavours remain applicable in each country. In some others, the migration of specific products still have to be completed. This document will help you understand the local specifics applicable in Austria. Intending to provide a global picture of the transition to SEPA, it also describes the elements that permitted the migration from the legacy means of payment. POST MIGRATION STATUS The European authorities agreed on allowing banks and other payment providers to process payments that differ from the SEPA format until 1st of August Each Member State has taken a position towards the application of this proposal. Austria reused the proposed date of 1st of August 2014 for the migration of both credit transfers and direct debits. Two means of payment have been declared as niche product and will be extended until 1 st of February 2016: the ATIB, a paper-based credit transfer that will not be migrated, and the ELV, an one-off direct debit that will be migrated to SDD.

2 Austria was supporting two credit transfer formats (Edifact V3 Paymul, ATIB), additionally to SCT. While Edifact is already phased out, ATIB has been declared as niche product, meaning it remains usable until 1 st February Edifact V3 Paymul ATIB Description National Format for domestic and international Payments Paper-based transactions which could not be translated into SEPA transactions Validity Phased out since the 1 st of August 2014 for EUR payments inside the SEPA zone. This format remains in use until 2016 for: - Urgent Payments (that are processed by highvalue clearings), - other currencies than Euro - payments towards beneficiaries out of the SEPA zone Niche product The product is maintained as today until the 1 st of February It will no longer be supported by banks after this date. pain.001 is the XML standard used for communications between the ordering party and their bank. In addition to the specifications provided by the EPC, some attention points should be taken into account: pain.001 currently exists in several versions. A company that starts its migration today is advised to implement the version pain , which is defined in the Rulebook 7 (downloadable on the EPC website ). Austrian banks agreed to setup their own payment guidelines, called STUZZA (downloadable on the website). These guidelines, available only in German, are fully in line with the EPC guidelines and precise the national requirements on top of it.

3 Austria was supporting two domestic direct debit schemes, based on the Edifact format. They both have been phased out on the 1 st of August Type Description Validity SDD Continuity Edifact V3 Dirdeb - Einzugsermächtigung, is a nonpreauthorised Phased out on the 1 st Existing mandates Einzugsermächtigung Direct Debit Scheme of August 2014 remain valid for SDD Edifact V3 Dirdeb - Lastschriftverfahren Lastschriftverfahren is a form of pre-authorised Dired Debit Scheme used for B2B and B2C business. Phased out on the 1 st of August 2014 Core and SDD Cor1 Existing mandates remain valid for SDD Core. For SDD B2B new mandates are mandatory Austria is also supporting the product ELV (Elektronisches Lastschriftverfahren), a specific means used especially in Austrian and German retail stores. It allows to initiate single transactions based on bank cards for which the customer must sign a receipt (agreement), which acts then as a mandate for a one-off transaction. In Austria, the ELV is a niche product (as it supports less than 10% of all transactions). The product will remain fully supported until the 1st February The solution that will replace the ELV is currently being defined and should be released in early Creditors using ELV are advised to stay in close contact with their terminal providers, to see what developments will come up to support the SEPA compliancy. Cor1 is a variant of the Core scheme, that allows a creditor to send transactions one day before the collection date, instead of the two/five days normally mandatory in the Core scheme. It has mainly been developed for the countries where this level of service was already applicable in the legacy scheme, to avoid reducing the efficiency of collections under SEPA. As Austria is one of these countries, Austrian banks fully adopted the Cor1 scheme. Austrian banks agreed to follow the standard recommendations of the EPC, without any specificity.

4 To be able to use SEPA direct debit, your first administrative step is to get a SEPA Creditor Identifier. This number will identify your company when collecting from all the SEPA area. Note you have the possibility to request one SEPA CI for each of your business activities. You can get your SEPA Creditor Identifier via your preferred bank. Once obtained, it can be used in any SEPA country, for any scheme and for collections through any bank. Positions 1 and 2: AT (ISO Code of Austria) Positions 3 and 4 : Check digit Positions 5 to 7 : Creditor Business Code, to be chosen by the creditor (by default: ZZZ) Positions 8 to 18 :Creditor National Identifier. These numbers are attributed in consecutive ascending order, with leading 0. Austria proposes the usage of the standard EPC template. Austrian mandates are currently only available in paper format. Electronic mandates will only come with the new European e-mandate regulation. The Regulation N 260/2012, article 7 Validity of mandates and right to a refund, allows that existing mandates within a legacy direct debit scheme continue to be used within SEPA. Legacy mandates that are not in use remain valid for one year. Therefore all mandates must be migrated by August 2015 at the latest. Migrating a mandate means that you have already a domestic mandate that authorize you to debit the account of one of your customer, and that you will continue using the same mandate, but with SEPA compliant collections. A mandate is considered as migrated when its first related collection in SEPA format has been performed successfully. The benefit of the migration is that you can continue to debit your customers without asking them to re-sign a SEPA mandate. To migrate your mandates, you should consider the two main following points: All existing domestic mandates (Einzugsermächtigungsverfahren and Abbuchungsauftragsverfahren ) remain valid for SDD Core. SDD B2B will always require the signature of a new mandate. Austria follows the recommendation of the EPC. There is therefore no specific migration rules.

5 In Austria, the IBAN is composed of 20 characters with the following structure: The first two characters identify the country : AT. The next two characters correspond to the standard IBAN check digit. The remaining 16 characters correspond to the current BBAN. Example: AT On the Austrian National Bank Website ( a list containing all banks, the bank code and their BIC is available for download.