The European Payments Council (EPC) Quick Response (QR) code is a technical standard by the European Payments Council. It uses a QR code containing all the necessary information for initiating a SEPA credit transfer (SCT). It is commonly used on invoices and payment requests in the countries that support it (Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands).
The EPC guidelines[1] are available from the EPC itself. Another version[2][3] has also been published by the Federation of Finnish Finance Services (FFI).
EPC QR code to pay €1 to the Belgian Red Cross(Encoded content differs from the sample content)EPC QR code to pay €1 to the Austrian Red Cross
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 STUZZA[4] (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 2015[8] and the Netherlands [9] in 2016.
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