SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) is a project promoted by the European Central Bank and the European Commission, whose aim is to extend the European integration process to euro retail payments made by non-cash means (credit transfers, direct debits and payment cards).
Since February 1, 2014, the SEPA legislation has come into effect, demanding new data transmission formats for credit transfers and RID, based on the XML standard that replaces the CBI (Customer to Business Interaction) formats.
The Bank of Italy has provided for a temporary derogation in the enforcement of the new track until the 1st of February, 2016. After that, however, the data must be sent from the companies to the banks according to this new format.
If you need to create this (relatively complex) type of flow for Credit Transfers (Credit Transfer – SCT) and RID (Direct Debit – SDD), Record Informatica can provide you with a native AS/400 procedure (iseries – System i – IBM i) which allows you to convert an AS400 file to the XML format required by the SEPA regulation.
The steps to create and send the flow in the new format are three:
- Preparation of payment data on a dedicated track on text file AS/400
For the users of the Accounting Applications Management (ACG) updated to version 3.3 or 3.8, we have a connector already prepared for the conversion from the transfer and RID archive to our data format.
Since the files exported by ACG are in CBI format, the ACG connector is also suitable for converting streams produced by other management systems that create CBI files for credit transfers and RID.
Below you can see a partial example of an input file used for our procedure, containing the basic data required by the submission (recipient’s IBAN, company name, etc.).
Note that among the input data there is also the “type of credit transfer”, primarily to manage the differentiation present in some TLQ between general and payroll transfers.
The procedure also checks for the presence of fundamental data by blocking the generation of the flow in the absence of elements such as the creditor’s IBAN. The presence of invalid characters, replaced by spaces, is also checked.
A modification function of the data of the transfers in input is also provided, so you can correct/ add any incorrect or missing data. With the same procedure you can even enter a bank transfer from scratch or cancel one.
2. Performing the AS/400 procedure, provided by us, to convert to XML
Run the program provided by us, which will take care of all the conversion steps, obtaining an XML file saved in an AS/400 library and compliant with SEPA standards. Below you can see an example:
3. Download the XML file, via Client Access or FTP, from AS/400 and import it to TLQ (corporate banking)
This involves performing an operation, by the accounting user, of acquiring (through Client Access or FTP) the file from the AS/400 system and then uploading it to the home (or corporate) banking site.
As you can see, the operation is very simple and allows you to prepare the transfer flow or RID in XML SEPA format, starting from a simplified start file or in CBI format (as for ACG).
You can, therefore, put this final conversion into your AS/400 workflow without changing the operation of users who, in the end, just download a file from the AS/400 just like they always do.
Transfer “XML Estero”
The procedure also allows you to create the flow for the “Foreign XML” transfers. This is the flow in XML format, also inspired by the ISO 20022 standard, dedicated to transfers outside the SEPA area (the US, for example) or within the SEPA area but in a currency other than euro (Switzerland in francs, for example).
Download the presentation document of our Credit Transfer and SEPA RID procedure below.
- XML-SEPA Presentation (italian version)