The European Payments Council (EPC) has listed 20 use-cases for the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer Scheme (known as SCTInst), which can be used in a variety of situations to make real-time payments between individuals and businesses (including P2P, P2B, B2P and B2B).

The examples given include paying your share of the bill when out for dinner (P2P) or buying goods from a friend (P2P), to paying taxes (P2B) or giving to charity (P2B), payment for freelance or one-off services (B2P) and high-value inter-company transfers (B2B).

Clearly the B2B category is of most interest to corporate treasurers. Other B2B use-cases include:

• payment of taxes, fines or penalties;
• urgent correction of a payment error or oversight;
• transfer of funds between businesses, instead of bank-confirmed cheques for the purchase of high-value goods or assets including merger and acquisition-related payments;
• high-value inter-company transfer payments, in particular those driven by short-term treasury needs.

For the full list of 20 use-cases examples (which is not exhaustive), see the EPC's infographic below: