Ah, thanks for that Omega, I thought all UK banks had been forced to sign up to it but I did suspect that this might be an issue. Have you withdrawn successfully from Kraken to HSBC or was it a different exchange?
It's not the easiest subject to find information on, most bank staff I've talked to haven't been aware of SEPA at all. Even at HSBC when I asked the branch staff about it, they had to look it up on their website ^^; Sadly I've also had issues with a SEPA transfer but they are of a slightly different nature, for me the status of the withdrawal is 'Success' however the money isn't in my bank account yet. It's only been 3 days though and I think they're very swamped with support tickets at the moment so I'm not sure if something's gone wrong or if I just need to wait a little longer.