“DFÜ-Abkommen” (Agreement on Remote Data Transmission)
Published on
21/09/2026
Updated on
21/09/2026
Reading time
2 min
Definition
The DFÜ-Abkommen (Abkommen über die Datenfernübertragung zwischen Kunden und Kreditinstituten – the agreement on remote data transmission between customers and credit institutions) is the set of rules defining the electronic interface between corporate customers and banks in Germany. It determines which channel data is exchanged over and what format that data has to be in.
It was concluded by the central associations of the German banking industry (today brought together in Die Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft, “DK“) and has applied since 15 March 1995. Ever since, it has been the common basis that allows a corporate customer to use the same software for all of its banking relationships.
Structure
The agreement consists of a main part and three annexes:
| Part | Content |
|---|---|
| Main part | General terms for the exchange of data between customer and institution |
| Annex 1 | Specification of the EBICS interface |
| Annex 2 | Specification of the FTAM connection under BCS (historical) |
| Annex 3 | Specification of the data formats |
Annex 1: EBICS
Annex 1 describes the transmission standard EBICS (key procedures, order types and BTF, initialisation and signature classes). In Germany, institutions have been obliged to offer EBICS to their customers since 1 January 2008.
Annex 2: BCS-FTAM
Annex 2 documents the predecessor procedure BCS-FTAM, which worked over dial-up connections such as X.25 or ISDN. It was replaced by EBICS and is of virtually no practical relevance; today the annex is mainly of historical value.
Annex 3: The data formats
Annex 3 is the annex most used in practice. It contains the binding description of every format exchanged between customer and institution:
- the SEPA formats pain.001, pain.002 and pain.008 for SCT and SDD
- the reporting formats camt.052, camt.053 and camt.054
- the account statement formats MT940 and MT942
- the legacy formats DTAUS for domestic and DTAZV for cross-border payments
The current version (as of 2026) carries the version number 26.11 and applies from 15 November 2026. The numbering follows the pattern YY.MM.
Legal status
The DFÜ-Abkommen is not a law but an agreement within the banking industry. It takes effect towards the customer because institutions adopt its provisions into their own terms and conditions for data exchange. The “Bedingungen für die Datenfernübertragung” that corporate customers receive from their bank refer to precisely this agreement including its annexes.
That makes it, in function, the German counterpart to the EPC at European level, cut to a different shape: the EPC governs schemes between payment service providers across the whole of SEPA, the DFÜ-Abkommen governs the interface between customer and institution in Germany.