The European Payments Council launched its annual public consultation on proposed changes to the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer scheme rulebook on March 13, 2026, opening a ninety-day window for feedback that closes on June 11. The change requests under consideration represent some of the most consequential operational enhancements proposed since the scheme went live in November 2017, touching fraud handling, dispute resolution, data capacity, and technical standards alignment.
Among the most impactful proposals is the introduction of a partial recall mechanism for fraud cases. Under the current rulebook, when a payment is recalled due to fraud, the beneficiary PSP must either return the full amount or decline the recall entirely. The proposed change would allow partial transfers back of funds, reflecting the practical reality that fraudulent recipients frequently move a portion of funds before detection. This mechanism would give originator PSPs a better chance of recovering at least some misdirected funds, a capability that the industry has requested with increasing urgency since the October 2025 sending mandate brought significantly higher instant payment volumes and, inevitably, a corresponding rise in fraud attempts.
A separate proposal would extend recall timelines for transactions flagged as duplicates or those affected by technical errors. The current timelines have proven insufficient in cross-border scenarios involving multiple intermediaries, where investigation and resolution routinely exceed the scheme's existing windows. Extending these deadlines would reduce the number of recalls that time out before a PSP can complete its investigation.
The consultation also introduces an entirely new procedure: a standardised repayment mechanism. Unlike recalls, which are initiated by the originator PSP, the proposed repayment procedure would enable the beneficiary to voluntarily transfer back funds from a previously settled SCT Inst transaction. No standardised process currently exists for this common scenario, forcing PSPs to manage beneficiary-initiated returns through bilateral ad hoc arrangements that vary by institution and jurisdiction. A scheme-level procedure would bring consistency and reduce operational friction.
On the data side, the EPC proposes extending the character length of name fields for originators, beneficiaries, and their respective reference parties from 70 to 140 characters. This change addresses a persistent challenge faced by PSPs serving customers with long legal entity names, particularly corporate participants and customers in jurisdictions where names are transliterated from non-Latin scripts. The current truncation at 70 characters has complicated Verification of Payee matching since VoP became mandatory alongside the sending mandate in October 2025, as shortened names produce false mismatches that undermine both fraud prevention and customer experience.
The most technically ambitious proposal calls for migrating the SCT Inst scheme rulebook to the latest available ISO 20022 standard. The current rulebook is based on an earlier version, and alignment with the latest release would bring the scheme into conformity with the November 2026 structured address deadline that SWIFT has set for cross-border messaging. However, this migration would require implementation effort from every scheme participant and is likely to generate substantial feedback given the resource constraints many PSPs already face from the IPR compliance programme.
Approved changes from this consultation would follow the EPC's established change management cycle, with incorporation into a new rulebook version typically effective the following November. Changes endorsed through this round could therefore take effect in November 2027. The consultation document is publicly available on the EPC website, and all scheme participants, national communities of practice, and industry stakeholders are invited to submit their responses before the June 11 deadline.