SEPA Instant Progress, or the lack of it...
- Thread starter Freelance
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From my observations it appears to be pretty hit and miss. While some/a lot of transactions are instant, some which should be aren't and it's difficult to discern a pattern. I certainly haven't seen or heard of a derogation or relaxation of the 10 second rule.
It will be very interesting to see how the banks get on with the next steps. There are three mountains to be climbed by the end of October 2025. VOP (Realtime Payee Verification), SEPA Instant Outbound and the lifting of the €100k cap on SEPA instant transactions. The first of these is an enormous technical challenge (and the architecture doesn't do much to make it easier to implement and the timelines for implementation are very very tight) and the second is likely to bring the creaking support services offered by Irish retail banks to their knees.
Interesting times.
Is this not just a case of them only having to be ready to receive SEPA Instant payments as of last month rather than there being any legal obligation to be able to send them? Come October I'd imagine the 10-second window for sending a payment will be on the radar more, but the early adopters are possibly just working through the functionality and any teething issues with it.
Well your payment probably should have arrived yesterday if you sent it that early but EBS, like all of the Irish banks, can’t send instant payments yet.
My observations relate to the payments which are in scope for SEPA Instant as of now. In other words transactions from the likes of N26, Revolut, BUNQ etc who currently offer SEPA Instant for outbound transactions to any euro based destination payment account. SEPA Instant should currently work reliably and comply with the 10 second timeframe for all such transactions, the reports here indicate that it doesn't.
They may already offer instant transactions but the legal requirement to be able to send them and therefore comply with the 10-second rule etc. does not apply until October 2025.
slith-zerikai
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Been on a back and forth with N26 about instant transfers to AIB for several weeks now. Wasn’t too impressed with their ability to even see the issue!
Anyway. Today march 8 2025. AIB still refuses to take SEPA Instant transfers from N26. N26 confirms it is the receiving bank refusing…
Anyway. Today march 8 2025. AIB still refuses to take SEPA Instant transfers from N26. N26 confirms it is the receiving bank refusing…
Your transaction has failed due to regulatory reasons. REJECTED_BY_SCHEME Payment failed by the Scheme (RR04). RR04 is a SEPA rejection code. You can look what this means on this file: https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/sites/default/files/kb/file/2021-11/EPC173-14%20v6.0%20Guidance%20on%20Reason%20Codes%20for%20SDD%20R-transactions.pdfThey're not obliged to support instant outward transfers until later this year:
slith-zerikai
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@ClubMan
N26 -> AIB is failing and the error message that N26 is getting is that AIB is refusing it the scheme.
N26 is well able to do instant transfers, just AIB isn't able to receive them. It is March, I believe March 2025 is after January 2025. So AIB is not complying with the regulation.
Normal transfers work, it is just instant ones that fail.
Of course if what you are saying is that no bank is obliged to support outbound SEPA Instant transfers until October 2025 then every bank could just drag their feet and not implement either inbound or outbound thing until October 2025.
My comment about N26 support is somewhat unrelated, just their support staff needed several weeks to look deep enough into the issue to finally point out the root cause, and when I first reported the issue they even claimed there was no error and that the transaction worked (money didn't move accounts).
N26 -> AIB is failing and the error message that N26 is getting is that AIB is refusing it the scheme.
N26 is well able to do instant transfers, just AIB isn't able to receive them. It is March, I believe March 2025 is after January 2025. So AIB is not complying with the regulation.
Normal transfers work, it is just instant ones that fail.
Of course if what you are saying is that no bank is obliged to support outbound SEPA Instant transfers until October 2025 then every bank could just drag their feet and not implement either inbound or outbound thing until October 2025.
My comment about N26 support is somewhat unrelated, just their support staff needed several weeks to look deep enough into the issue to finally point out the root cause, and when I first reported the issue they even claimed there was no error and that the transaction worked (money didn't move accounts).
Dr Strangelove
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Fair play for persevering and getting such a clear answer.
slith-zerikai
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@ClubMan
The short answer because I am an N26 customer. The slightly longer one:
I only found out today that the issue was with AIB refusing. Up until today (literally this morning got a message from N26) Until this moment I had no evidence to show where the error was taking place. AIB may have rightly said the problem was with N26.
So today I have written a complaint to AIB and when they come back to me trying to blame N26, I will have an actual error code to quote to AIB.
The short answer because I am an N26 customer. The slightly longer one:
I only found out today that the issue was with AIB refusing. Up until today (literally this morning got a message from N26) Until this moment I had no evidence to show where the error was taking place. AIB may have rightly said the problem was with N26.
So today I have written a complaint to AIB and when they come back to me trying to blame N26, I will have an actual error code to quote to AIB.
Well done on get hard information on the reason for rejection. That's actually quite an achievement.
Interesting that they pointed you to the document "Guidance On Reason Codes For SDD R-transactions" which relates to Direct Debits rather than "Guidance On Reason Codes For SCT Inst R-transactions" which applies to SEPA Instant Credit Transfers. Error code RR04 appears in both with a similar vague description and is a catchall "everything else" error code for any Regulatory Reason other than RR01, RR02 and RR03. However the latter document does add under RR04 "Potential hit due to AML, Embargo or Counter-Terrorist-Financing reasons."
It will be very interesting to see how this plays out. You may find that it is something as simple as one of the names on the transaction falling foul of "sanctions checking" or some such.
This does highlight a much wider issue on how the banks communicate with their customers. The will become even more important when the additional SEPA Instant rules (and in particular VOP - Verification of Payee) kick in on 5th October 2025, the weekend before the SEPA Instant Payments Regulation fully kicks in. Simply allowing the transaction to fail or default to traditional SEPA CT with no detail provided to the originator will be a complete mess and will lead to a lot of frustration. I've said it a number of times. SEPA Instant is revolutionary and will blow a massive hole in the ramshackle fraud detection and customer support that the Irish retail banks currently have in place.
redchariot
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Revolut to PTSB was pretty instantaneous for me when I did a transfer a few weeks ago