<P> The IBAN designation scheme was chosen as the foundation for electronic straight - through processing in the European Economic Area . The European Parliament mandated that a bank charge needs to be the same amount for domestic credit transfers as for cross-border credit transfers regulated in decision 2560 / 2001 (updated in 924 / 2009). This regulation took effect in 2003 . Only payments in euro up to € 12,500 to a bank account designated by its IBAN were covered by the regulation . </P> <P> The Euro Payments regulation has been the foundation for the decision to create a Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). The European Central Bank has created the TARGET2 interbank network that unifies the technical infrastructure of the 26 central banks of the European Union (although Sweden and the UK have opted - out). SEPA is a self - regulatory initiative by the banking sector of Europe as represented in the European Payments Council (EPC). The European Union made the scheme mandatory through the Payment Services Directive published in 2007 . Since January 2008, all countries must support SEPA credit transfer, and SEPA direct debit must be supported since November 2009 . The regulation on SEPA payments increases the charge cap (same price for domestic payments as for cross-border payments) to € 50,000 . </P> <P> With a further decision of the European Parliament, the IBAN scheme for bank accounts fully replaced the domestic numbering schemes from 31 December 2012 . On 16 December 2010, the European Commission published proposed regulations that will make IBAN support mandatory for domestic credit transfer by 2013 and for domestic direct debit by 2014 (with a 12 and 24 months transition period respectively). Some countries have already replaced their traditional bank account scheme by IBAN . This includes Switzerland where IBAN was introduced for national credit transfer on 1 January 2006 and the support for the old bank account numbers has not been required from 1 January 2010 . </P> <P> Based on a 20 December 2011 memorandum, the EU parliament resolved the mandatory dates for the adoption of the IBAN on 14 February 2012 . From 1 February 2014, all national systems for credit transfer and direct debit must be abolished and replaced by an IBAN - based system . This will be extended to all cross-border SEPA transactions from 1 February 2016 (Article 5 Section 7). After these dates the IBAN will be sufficient to identify an account for home and foreign financial transactions in SEPA countries and banks will no longer be permitted to require that the customer supply the BIC for the beneficiary's bank . </P>

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