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The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is a payment-integration initiative of the European Union for simplification of bank transfers denominated in euro.

If you make or accept payments via direct bank transfers then you will know all about SEPA. As a customer online payment method direct bank transfers are popular in some countries (i.e. Germany) and not so popular in others (i.e the UK).

The deadline for SEPA payments was 1st February 2014 but (as of the time of writing) has been extended 6 months to 1st August 2014.

SEPA standardises bank transfers in Europe, replacing bank specific account and sort code numbers with an IBAN (International Bank Account Number) and BIC (Business Identifier Code).

For most businesses the migration to SEPA involves communicating the new changes to customers and migrating bank account numbers and sort codes to IBAN and BIC.

For Magento stores if you have a payment method that allows customers to pay via a direct bank transfer then you need to ensure that you can capture IBAN and BIC numbers at checkout. Until 1st August 2014 you can decide to give the customer the option of entering either bank account number and sort code or IBAN and BIC. From August 1st you *should* only be accepting IBAN and BIC.

Here is what you need to do to get your Magento Store ready for SEPA payments

• Make sure you are capturing bank account information in the SEPA format – IBAN and BIC at checkout.
• Check that your validation rules work for the IBAN and BIC formats.
• Make a note to remove input fields and validation rules for old account formats, bank account number and sort code.
• Upgrade your existing debit payment methods to make sure they support SEPA.
• Implement a validation system for IBAN and BIC

This debit module is perfect for German Magento shops implengint Direc Debit (Lastschrift) payment methods and supports SEPA : https://github.com/therouv/Magento-DebitPayment