According to https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2012/html/pr120725_1.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2012/html/pr120725_1... it was part of

According to https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2012/html/pr120725_1.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2012/html/pr120725_1... it was part of the SEPA migration but as a customer I remember quite a lot of card skimming happening too at the time, and banks accelerating EMV rollout to stop that.