http://www.epo.org/service-support/updates/2020/20201211a.html
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Please note
that over the forthcoming holiday period, all
EPO sites will be closed from 24
December 2020 to 3 January 2021 inclusive
. Furthermore, there will be a temporary unavailability
of some online services
from 27 December 2020 at 13:00 hrs to 30 December 2020 at
13:00 CET.

This will
affect fee processing as follows:

Replenishments
made during the unavailability period will be automatically credited to your
deposit account and will be visible in the Online Fee Payment from 30.12.2020,
13:00h provided that the deposit account number is correctly quoted in the
reference field of the bank transfer (e.g. “replenishment 28XXXXXX”,
“repl28XXXXXX” or “deposit 28XXXXXX”). If this important
information is missing, you may receive an (automatic) notification of
insufficient funds. In this case a manual processing of the replenishment will
be performed retroactively at the earliest on 4.01.2021.

Debit orders
submitted via Online Filing, New online filing (CMS) and Online Filing 2.0 between
24.12.2020 and 30.12.2020 will be effectively booked and visible in the Online
Fee Payment as from 30.12.2020 at 13:00 hrs CET, provided sufficient funds are
available. The payment date as defined under Point 5.4 of the Arrangements for deposit accounts remains unaffected.

It will be
possible to claim pending refunds online when the online services are available
again i.e. as from 30.12.2020 at 13:00 hrs CET. Refunds to EPO deposit accounts will be
visible online the day after in the Online Fee Payment, whereas refunds to bank
accounts will only be effectively executed with the next planned payment run
after the closure period i.e. as from 4.01.2021.

Year-end closing
is expected to be completed by 8.01.2021. In accordance with point 4.2 of the Arrangements for deposit
accounts
, once the financial year is closed, a balance
confirmation stating the year-end balance of the deposit account will be sent
to all deposit account holders by post.