EPI ELECTRONIC PAYMENT INITIATOR

During the past few years banks have made many efforts to offer their customers an alternative to payment transfers with documentation by payment slip through the use of new technologies such as, for example, internet banking; In Austria alone already 1.5 million account holders use internet banking.

In the area of E-commerce (e.g. internet shopping) an electronic remittance could to date not be satisfactorily realised due to the lack of an international standard. Payment by credit card, invoice and payment slip or by cash on delivery continue to be he usual payment methods offered.

In September 2002 the EBS602 V1.0 specification was published on the part of ECBS. Since September 2003 an update has been available (Specification EBS602 V1.1) including the technical documentation (Standard Implementation Guideline SIG605 V1.1). The ePI standard was thus conceived in such a way that it is included in many business processes and applications, e.g. EBPP process. The ePI is produced by the recipient (e.g. trader) and made available to the customer electronically (e.g. by email or download). The customer can then import this ePi through an interface into the internet for effecting payment and must no longer establish the recipient data.

The standard follows international regulations and instructions

• Compatibility with existing systems, e.g. SWIFT MT103+, EDIFACT  
• IBAN as account identification 
• BIC as bank identification 
• Uniform standard for national and international payment transfers
• Supports EU Regulation (924/2009/EC) for cross-border remittances as from 1.7.2003  
• Supports all currencies 
• No investments for the end customer

Syntax

The ePi standard is principally syntax neutral. In the technical description the ePI standard was represented in XML scheme syntax in accordance with W3C standard and thus follows the international developments (e.g. SWIFT XML Messages).
The XML scheme including examples of an ePI XML communication as well as XML stylesheets for the visualisation of a XML communication can be found on the ECBS home page.

Pilot projects with the ePI standard

Finland (FINVOICE) and Austria (eps e-payment standard) are currently working on the implementation of national applications whereby the electronic payment request (= electronic payment slip) is based on the ePI standard.