Menu
Home Explore People Places Arts History Plants & Animals Science Life & Culture Technology
On this page
EPC QR code
Guidelines on QR codes for credit transfer

The European Payments Council (EPC) Quick Response (QR) code is a technical standard that uses a QR code containing all the information needed to initiate a SEPA credit transfer (SCT). This standard is commonly used on invoices and payment requests in countries like Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, and The Netherlands. The EPC provides official guidelines for implementing the QR code, with an alternative version published by the Federation of Finnish Finance Services (FFI), facilitating smooth and standardized electronic payments across participating European countries.

Related Image Collections Add Image
Profiles
1 Image
We don't have any YouTube videos related to EPC QR code yet.
We don't have any PDF documents related to EPC QR code yet.
We don't have any Books related to EPC QR code yet.
We don't have any archived web articles related to EPC QR code yet.

Sample content of QR Code

Service Tag:BCD
Version:001
Character set:1
Identification:SCT
BIC:BPOTBEB1
Name:Red Cross
IBAN:BE72000000001616
Amount:EUR1
Reason (4 chars max):CHAR
Ref of invoice:Empty line or REFINVOICE
Or text:Urgency fund or Empty line
Information:Sample EPC QR code

So the QR string could be

BCD 001 1 SCT BPOTBEB1 Red Cross of Belgium BE72000000001616 EUR1 CHAR Urgency fund Sample EPC QR code

History

In 2012, the Austrian payment facilitator STUZZA4 (now part of PSA Payment Services Austria) defined the content of a QR code that could be used to initiate money transfers within the Single Euro Payments Area.

In February 2013, the European Payments Council (EPC) published the document 'Quick Response Code: Guidelines to Enable Data Capture for the Initiation of a Credit Transfer'. 5

These guidelines were quickly adopted by the Austrian banks. These QR code can be recognised thanks to the words "Zahlen mit Code" (Pay with Code) on the right.6

These guidelines were later on used in Finland in 2015,7 Germany in 20158 and the Netherlands 9 in 2016.

See also

  • Business and economics portal

References

  1. EPC guidelines V 3.1 https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/document-library/guidance-documents/quick-response-code-guidelines-enable-data-capture-initiation ↩

  2. "Federation of Finnish Finance Services guidelines" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-08-15. Retrieved 2017-08-15. https://web.archive.org/web/20170815180131/http://www.finanssiala.fi/maksujenvalitys/dokumentit/QR_code_in_credit_transfer_form.pdf ↩

  3. Internet Archive version of Federation of Finnish Finance Services guidelines https://web.archive.org/web/20190709070721/http://www.finanssiala.fi/maksujenvalitys/dokumentit/QR_code_in_credit_transfer_form.pdf ↩

  4. "Stuzza - Studiengesellschaft für Zusammenarbeit im Zahlungsverkehr GmbH" (in German). https://www.stuzza.at ↩

  5. "Quick Response Code Guidelines to enable data capture for the initiation of a sepa credit transfer". In February 2013, the European Payments Council (EPC) published the document 'Quick Response Code: Guidelines to Enable Data Capture for the Initiation of a Credit Transfer' http://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/index.cfm/about-epc/epc-news/epc-publication-quick-response-code-guidelines-to-enable-data-capture-for-the-initiation-of-a-sepa-credit-transfer/ ↩

  6. PSA "Zahlen mit code" https://zv.psa.at/de/download/qr-code.html ↩

  7. "Guidelines from the FFI" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-08-15. Retrieved 2017-08-15. https://web.archive.org/web/20170815180131/http://www.finanssiala.fi/maksujenvalitys/dokumentit/QR_code_in_credit_transfer_form.pdf ↩

  8. Girocode in Germany https://www.girocode.de/rechnungsempfaenger/ ↩

  9. free EPC QR code for EU https://epc-qr.eu/ ↩