SEPA Character Set
The SEPA character set is used to create messages in online or e-banking. This can include composing transfer orders or direct debit collections and setting up standing orders. SEPA is based on the XML format, as most international IT systems support this standard at their interfaces. It was used by the European Payments Council (EPC) to develop the SEPA payment instruments and to enable a fully automated process for payment transactions in the EU. The DTA format and procedure previously used in Germany for domestic payment transactions will therefore be replaced by the XML format with SEPA. In accordance with ISO 20022, this enables the UTF8 character set and can generally map all characters in the world. However, the SEPA rules require the use of the Latin character set, which includes the letters A to Z in upper and lower case as well as a few punctuation marks. The use of the UTF8 character set is optional, the exact specifications can be found in the SEPA Rulebook.
Illegal characters and alternatives
Banks have the option to replace invalid characters in purpose or other details in transactions with spaces or characters similar in meaning. Using the “Best Practices” found in the EPC Guidelines, characters can be converted back if the banking institution has substituted them. It is also possible for the bank to reject an order if the record it contains is incorrect due to invalid characters. To avoid the use of invalid characters, purpose codes can be used in the purpose of a transaction. These consist of four-digit alpha codes and are to be understood as text keys. For example, the code SALA stands for the transaction of a wage or salary posting. The alpha codes consist of four capital letters of the Latin alphabet and are therefore always in the permitted SEPA character set. Another advantage of the purpose codes is that they can be used to identify incoming and outgoing payments automatically.
