The Electronic Banking Internet Communication Standard (EBICS) is a German transmission protocol developed by the German Banking Industry Committee for sending payment information between banks, as well as between banks and client applications, over the Internet. It grew out of the earlier BCS-FTAM protocol that was developed in 1995, with the aim of being able to use Internet connections and TCP/IP. It is mandated for use by German banks and has also been adopted by France, Switzerland and Austria.[1] Adoptions in different countries have resulted in specific operations being permitted by some banks while being disallowed by others.
EBICS is used in the Single Euro Payments Area: the standard can be used as the secure communication channel to initiate SEPA Direct Debits and SEPA Credit Transfers using the Internet. SEPA concentrates on standardisation of clearing protocols in the inter-bank networks. The SEPA-Clearing guidelines do not supplant any national clearing transmission protocols. Theoretically the national banking transmission standards could be prolonged for decades.