European Banking Authority finalises SEPA reporting standards for transfer and account charges and rejected transactions, pushing first harmonised reporting to April 2026

The European Banking Authority has published its final draft Implementing Technical Standards to standardise how banks, payment institutions and e-money institutions report to national competent authorities data on charges for credit transfers and payment accounts, and the share of transactions rejected due to the EU sanctions regime. The package also delays the start of harmonised reporting by 12 months, from April 2025 to April 2026. The standards set uniform reporting templates, instructions and methodology intended to support analysis of the impact of the amended Single Euro Payments Area Regulation, including monitoring whether consumers benefit from access to instant credit transfers and whether instant credit transfers are no more expensive than regular credit transfers. To reduce reporting burden pending EU adoption and technical build, national competent authorities are asked to deprioritise data collection from payment service providers, discourage unharmonised reporting before the EBA taxonomy, datapoint model and validation rules are available, and not take enforcement action regarding providers that do not report in 2025. The European Commission is expected to adopt the EBA’s final draft ITS, after which the EBA will develop the taxonomy, datapoint model and validation rules for industry implementation. The subsequent reporting by national competent authorities to the EBA and the European Commission is also deferred to October 2026.