(1)
In addition to the essential requirements set out in Article 5, the following technical requirements shall apply to credit transfers and direct debit transactions: The payment account identifier referred to in Article 5(1)(a) and (c) must be IBAN. The standard for message format referred to in Article 5(1)(b) and (d) must be the ISO 20022 XML standard. The remittance data field must allow for 140 characters. Payment schemes may allow for a higher number of characters, except if the device used to remit information has technical limitations relating to the number of characters, in which case the technical limit of the device applies. Remittance reference information and all the other data elements provided in accordance with points (2) and (3) of this Annex must be passed in full and without alteration between PSPs in the payment chain. Once the required data is available in electronic form payment transactions must allow for a fully automated, electronic processing in all process stages throughout the payment chain (end-to-end straight through processing), enabling the entire payment process to be conducted electronically without the need for re-keying or manual intervention. This must also apply to exceptional handling of credit transfers and direct debit transactions, whenever possible. Payment schemes must set no minimum threshold for the amount of the payment transaction allowing for credit transfers and direct debits but are not required to process payment transactions with zero amount. Payment schemes are not obliged to carry out credit transfers and direct debits exceeding the amount of EUR 999999999,99.
Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-25 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.