SwiftRef SEPA Directory
The SEPA Directory offers structured information on SEPA scheme participation, including BIC‑level reachability, scheme roles and participation status, enabling you to understand who can send, receive, or process SEPA payments and through which schemes.
Benefits
The SEPA Directory enables upfront validation of SEPA eligibility and scheme participation, and includes cross-referenced identifiers, participants, relationships, codes, formats, calendars and structures.
Access SEPA participation data in a structured, machine‑readable format aligned with scheme definitions, supporting automation and system integration, and reducing failed transactions and downstream payment repairs.
While mandatory in the bank-to-bank part of the payment flow, the initiating consumer is not obliged to provide the Swift BIC of the beneficiary bank. This directory enables you to derive that BIC from its IBAN.
Use cases
- A bank needs to send a SEPA payment, but does not know which clearing and settlement mechanism or SEPA payment type that the beneficiary bank supports due to country-specific rules or requirements.
- A bank needs to find a direct payment market infrastructure participant that adheres to SEPA Credit Transfer and SEPA Direct Debit schemes in order to act as an intermediary for its indirectly reachable counterparty.
- A bank needs to validate a counterparty's SEPA IBAN from which to derive the IBAN ID, then convert it into a clearing code for a country in which the IBAN ID is not the same as the clearing code.
Learn more about SEPA Directory
Talk to one of our Account Managers