RECENT SCS VOLUME RELEASES
At current the latest approved version of the Volume is version 10.0. You can find this latest release on a dedicated page here.
The Volume has been an active document since 2009, originally owned and developed by the European Payments Council (EPC). With the creation of the ECSG as an International not-for-profit association in 2016, the Intellectual Property Rights of the SCS Volume were transferred to the ECSG, with version 8.0 of the Volume being the first ECSG release.
The early Volume versions (versions 1.0-6.0, published by the EPC as a single document) were subsequently split in to multiple books in 2014. An overview of these releases can be located within Book 1 of the Volume itself.
January 2014
Version 7.0 of the SCS Volume is published by the EPC together with the CSG.
The six books of the SCS Volume version 7.0 cover a set of requirements applicable to card present (face-to-face) transactions to allow investment decisions and implementation based on stable requirements. The deadline for market implementation was January 2017.
(Note: The CSG feedback from the version 6.5 consultation can be located here: 6.5 consultation feedback spreadsheet)
December 2015
Version 7.1 of the SCS Volume is published by the EPC together with the CSG.
Updated to include new functional and security requirements applicable to card-not-present transactions, and a cards processing framework. Requirements published in Volume version 7.0, applicable to card-present transactions, and the related implementation timeline, remain unchanged. All stakeholders and interested parties active in the SEPA cards domain are encouraged to roll out services and products in line with the requirements set out in version 7.1 of the SCS Volume in a three-year period, i.e. by December 2018.
(Note: The CSG feedback from the version 7.1 consultation can be located here: 7.05 consultation feedback spreadsheet)
February 2016
The EPC and the CSG published a Bulletin that defines the recommended way to meet a major Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR) requirement. More precisely it addresses article 10.5 of the IFR which prescribes that by 9 June 2016 all cards be electronically identifiable enabling payers and payees to unequivocally identify which brands and categories of prepaid cards, debit cards, credit cards or commercial cards are chosen by the payer. This migration towards the market using this recommended electronic recognition may take time. Therefore a short term solution based on Bank Identification Number (BIN) tables made available to merchants should however allow meeting the regulatory deadline. For detailed information, refer to this dedicated EPC Website page: SEPA Cards Standardisation Volume Version 7.1 - Bulletin 01.
March 2017
After receiving and handling one thousand comments from stakeholders of the complete card value chain during the public consultation, version 8.0 of the SCS Volume is published by the ECSG. The key changes included in version 8.0 of the Volume, compared to the previous release published in December 2015, include the addition of final guidelines to ease compliance with some aspects of the IFR related to contactless payments and choice of application as well as the inclusion of more details regarding the use of a unique ID for pre-authorisation in the hospitality sector. Based on feedback received, some of the books have also been refreshed in terms of structure and layout.
A new annex has also been added to provide a simplified overview of a card transaction.
For further information on this release, please refer to this dedicated page.
December 2018
The ECSG publishes the consultation v8.5 documents, including the 'Tokenisation Considerations for SEPA Card Payments'.
For further information on this release, please refer to this dedicated page.
January 2020
The ECSG publishes version 9.0 of the SCS Volume, integrated with a Bulletin on Merchant Initiated Transactions published in October 2021. For further information on this release, please refer to this dedicated page.
December 2021
The ECSG publishes the consultation v9.5.
October 2022
The ECSG publishes version 10 of the SCS Volume. For further information on this release, please refer to this dedicated page.