Direct participation is restricted to credit institutions as defined in Article 4 (1) of Directive 2013/575/EU (deposit-taking credit institutions). Access as an indirect participant via a direct participant is solely possible for other deposit-taking credit institutions. Furthermore, a direct participant is also able to submit cheque payments as well as receive such cheque payments on behalf of credit institutions with a partial banking license (so-called addressable BIC holders). Payments submitted or received by an indirect participant or an addressable BIC holder via a direct participant are deemed equivalent to payments submitted or received by the direct participant himself.

Cheque images belonging to the ISE procedure are transmitted using the Bundesbank's ExtraNet.

Before going live, integrative tests must be run between the credit institution or the IT service provider it commissions and the Bundesbank's test centre. To register for the test, please use form 4831 or the Customer Test Centre's online form. In addition, it may be necessary to run authorisation tests in TARGET2 and communication tests in EBICS or SWIFTNet FileAct. To guarantee a timely registration, we urge you to contact our test centre at an early stage.

Before starting the test phase, an application for participation should be submitted using form 4780 (direct participation) or forms 4062 and 4063 (indirect participation).
Additionally, the communication channel used for the message exchange has to be stipulated using form 4750 (EBICS) or Annex 1 of form 4780 (SWIFTNet FileAct). Moreover, it is necessary to designate and, where appropriate, set up a settlement account on the TARGET2 platform in good time before going live.

Further information can be obtained from the procedural rules, technical specifications, schema files and sample files. Please note that the sample files do not cover all possible issues exhaustively and are not interelated. They serve purely to illustrate the logic of cheque processing in principle. You will also find a list of links to the forms mentioned above at the end of this page.