SEPA Direct Debit

Information

SEPA Direct Debit is also available through Flow. Flow enables you to accept payments on your website using Checkout.com's global network of payment methods with a single integration.

The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is an European Union initiative to simplify payments within and across member countries. SEPA established and enforced banking standards to enable direct debits from every Euro-denominated bank account within the SEPA region.

Checkout.com supports:

SEPA Direct Debit Core – For transactions between business and personal bank accounts
SEPA Direct Debit B2B – For transactions between business bank accounts only

Participating banks must charge the same fees for cross-border core payments as they do for direct debit payments processed within their own country.

You can process SEPA for one-off transactions and recurring payments. However, due to the risk of chargebacks, we do not recommend using SEPA when:

You need an immediate confirmation of payment.
The risk of chargebacks from customers is a significant concern.
You're processing one-off or very infrequent payments.
Your business process requires immediate notification when a payment fails.

Information

To enable SEPA payments on your account, contact your account manager or [email protected].

Model	Collecting
Payment method	Direct debit
Auto capture
Void
Deferred capture
Partial capture
Multiple partial capture
Refund
Partial refund
Chargeback	Returns and chargebacks
Recurring payment

The SEPA Creditor Identifier (Creditor ID or CSI) is a unique reference number used in SEPA Direct Debit payments to identify the creditor or company collecting the payment.

All your payments are collected using Checkout.com's Creditor ID, so you do not need to obtain your own. Ensure that you show our creditor ID in the mandate authorization to request your customer's consent.

To also display your merchant name in the customer's statement, you must provide the billing_descriptor.name field in your payment request.

To debit payments from your customer's account, you must first obtain their written consent through a mandate. The mandate must contain specific legal wording regarding the customer's authorization and refund rights. See the European Payment Council (EPC) mandate guidelines for more information.

In addition to this mandate, you also collect required information such as the customer's name and bank account details.

Merchant logo
Checkout SAS - 20 bis rue, La Fayette, 75009 Paris,
Creditor identifier: Checkout.com Creditor ID SEPA Core Direct Debit mandate

Type of payment: □ Recurring or □ one-off

By signing this mandate form, you authorize (A) [Checkout.com re MERCHANT NAME] to send instructions to your bank to debit your account and (B) your bank to debit your account in accordance with the instructions from [Checkout.com re MERCHANT NAME]. As part of your rights, you are entitled to a refund from your bank under the terms and conditions of your agreement with your bank. A refund must be claimed within 8 weeks starting from the date on which your account was debited. Your rights are explained in a statement that you can obtain from your bank.

UNDERSIGNED
Debtor data:
Company name: ____________
Or
First name: ____________
Last name: ____________
Address and number: ____________
Postal code and city/town: ____________
Country: ____________
Account number (IBAN): ____________
BIC: ____________
Date (day/month/year): ____________/ ____________ / ____________
Signature:

Merchant logo
Checkout SAS - 20 bis rue, La Fayette, 75009 Paris,
Creditor Identifier: Checkout.com Creditor ID
SEPA Business-to-Business Direct Debit Mandate

TYPE OF PAYMENT: □ recurrent or □ one-off

By signing this mandate form, you authorize (A) [Checkout.com re MERCHANT NAME] to send instructions to your bank to debit your account and (B) your bank to debit your account in accordance with the instructions from [Checkout.com re MERCHANT NAME]. This mandate is only intended for business-to-business transactions. You are not entitled to a refund from your bank after your account has been debited, but you are entitled to request your bank not to debit your account up until the day on which the payment is due. Please contact your bank for detailed procedures in such a case.

UNDERSIGNED
Debtor data: Company name: ____________
Address and number: ____________
Postal code and city/town: ____________
Country: ____________
Account number (IBAN): ____________
BIC: ____________
Date (day/month/year): ____________/ ____________ / ____________
Signature:

After setting up the mandate, you must notify your customer of the amount and collection date at least 14 days before you collect the payment.

The pre-notification must contain the following information:

For a one-off mandate, the date the payment will be debited from their account
For a recurring mandate, the recurring date the payment will be debited from their account
The payment amount
The mandate ID
The creditor ID
Your contact details

You must send the pre-notification within the notice period specified in the mandate you set up with the customer, no more than 14 days before the payment due date.

As a guideline, we recommend that you send the pre-notification three working days before the payment due date.

You can send the pre-notification via any of the following methods:

Email
Invoice
Letter
Phone
SMS

SEPA Direct Debit Pre-notification Sample

Date: [Date of sending the pre-notification]

Creditor details:

Creditor name: Checkout.com
Creditor identifier: Checkout.com Creditor Id
Address: Checkout SAS - 20 bis rue, La Fayette, 75009 Paris,
Contact details: [Your company phone number/email]

Debtor Details:

Debtor Name: [Customer Name]
Debtor Address: [Customer Address]
Payment Details:
Amount: €[Amount to be debited]
Due Date: [Date the payment will be debited from the customer's account]
Mandate Reference: [Mandate ID]
What's this for: [For example, Invoice for goods/services, Subscription fee, Rent]
Payment Scheme: SEPA Direct Debit Core

This is a friendly reminder about an upcoming payment. We'll be debiting €[Amount to be debited] from your account (IBAN: [Debtor's IBAN]) on [Due Date].

This relates to the direct debit agreement you set up with us. Mandate reference: [Unique identifier for the direct debit mandate]

If anything is unclear, or you have any questions, please contact [Your company phone number/email].

The payment flow follows these steps:

When you send the payment request, Checkout.com validates and forwards it to our sponsor bank.
The bank checks the SEPA direct debit authorization and sends it to the customer's bank.
The next day, the customer's bank checks the request and either confirms or rejects it.
If the request is confirmed, the following day the bank credits the amount to our bank account.

SEPA Core offers strong customer protections, including:

Eight-week refund right – Customers can request a refund for any authorized transaction within eight weeks of the debit.
13-month refund right – Customers can request a refund for any unauthorized debits made without a valid mandate for up to 13 months after the debit.

SEPA B2B does not offer these guarantees because customers cannot request refunds for authorized payment collections.

Information

Returns driven by customer's bank rejection can be communicated up to 6 days after the payment capture.

After the payment is captured, it can still get rejected by the customer bank. Returns driven by rejection can be communicated to us up to 6 days after the payment request. You receive a payment_returned webhook when this happens.

Customers can reverse a payment made against a SEPA Core mandate up to eight weeks after the original payment date.

Customers may submit a claim with their bank to reverse the payment if:

They want to revoke the direct debit authorization.
They state that they did not provide authorization for the direct debit.

You cannot challenge a SEPA return initiated by the customer. The funds will always return to the customer. If you have an issues with a reversal, contact your customer directly.

Information

Customers can initiate a reversal for a payment made against a SEPA mandate that has not been authorized up to 13 months after the original payment date.

If you already process SEPA payments yourself or with another provider, you must transfer your mandates to Checkout.com's platform.

To transfer your mandates to Checkout.com, follow these steps:

Update your creditor ID and inform your customers.
Upload the details of your mandates to our platform.

Contact your account manager to request a Checkout.com creditor ID.
Change your current provider's creditor ID to our creditor ID.
This is the ID that you must show your customers when setting up mandates.
Contact the customers you will collect payments from, and inform them of the creditor ID change.
This helps you reduce chargebacks from your customers, because they are less likely to reject payments if they're aware of the creditor ID change.

You can upload your mandate details to Checkout.com in one of the following ways:

For each mandate, call the Create instrument endpoint to upload its details.
The response returns an src_id field, which you use for subsequent collections. See Create a payment source before your first payment for more information.
Send the first payment request with the mandate ID and date of signature.
We then generate a new src_id value for you to use for subsequent collections. See Create a payment source with your first payment request for more information.

Checkout.com communicates status updates for your payments through webhooks. You must set up your webhook receiver.

During the lifecycle of a SEPA Direct Debit payment, you receive the following webhooks:

Webhook	Description
`payment_pending`	Checkout.com has accepted your request.
`payment_rejected`	The bank declined the payment request due to a technical or fraud-related issue.
`payment_capture_pending`	We have successfully sent your request to our sponsor bank.
`payment_captured`	The bank accepted the payment request.
`payment_returned`	There was a failure after an initial success. The funds move out of your account. There are three types of return: Post-settlement return – Up to five days after the initial capture Authorized refund – Up to eight weeks after the initial capture Unauthorized disputes – Up to 13 months after the initial capture
`refund_accepted`	The bank successfully received confirmation from the SEPA network and the funds have been transferred.
`refund_declined`	The bank declined the payment request due to a technical or fraud-related issue.

The following sections describe the order in which each notification is sent, depending on the payment lifecycle:

You can receive the following response codes when processing SEPA Direct Debit Core payments:

Response code	Description
`20014`	Invalid account number
`20018`	Customer dispute
`20051`	Insufficient funds
`30001`	Direct debit forbidden on this account for regulatory reasons
`30002`	Incorrect payment transaction code, or sequence error
`30005`	Incorrect creditor ID
`30006`	Creditor bank not registered under this BIC in the CSM
`30008`	No valid mandate or unauthorized transaction
`30009`	Disputed authorized transaction
`30010`	Debtor refuses the collection You can receive this code before or after settlement, depending on how quickly the debtor's bank responds to the refusal.
`30011`	Reason not specified (agent generated)
`30012`	Incorrect bank identifier
`30013`	Debtor name or address required for regulatory reasons is insufficient or missing
`30014`	Creditor name or address required for regulatory reasons is insufficient or missing
`30025`	Regulatory reasons
`30026`	Conflict with customer instructions The request conflicts with specific instructions your customer has added to their account. For example, they may have added the creditor to a blocklist, or not explicitly added them to an allowlist.
`30027`	Duplicate entry
`30046`	Account closed
`30047`	Account frozen
`300BS`	Rejected
`300AS`	Returned

Web

Accept SEPA Direct Debit payments on your website with Flow, our pre-built, customizable payment user interface.

API Only

Build your own UI and integrate with our API to process SEPA payments.

SEPA Direct Debit

Information

Information

Creditor ID and billing descriptor

SEPA payment flow

Information

Payment returns and chargebacks

Information

Transfer your existing mandates

Update your creditor ID

Upload your mandate details

Webhooks

Response codes

Available for

Web

API Only