Direct Debit payments (3rd party-initiated payments)

The Direct Debit payment lifecycle

Third parties that you authorise can initiate payments from your account via Direct Debit schemes like Bacs or SEPA.

Once a payment request is triggered, it will appear as pending processing in the GET payments endpoint. On collection date, the payment will be processed according to the regular payment lifecycle process.

Notifications

You can receive a notification whenever a Direct Debit payment is due from one of your accounts by signing up to the OutgoingDirectDebitPendingProcessing notification event.

Rejections and Refunds

Third party-initiated payments from your account can be rejected or, in most cases refunded.

• A rejection cancels a payment from your account before it's processed.
• A refund happens after the funds have been debited from your account.

A successful refund triggers an incoming credit to your account referencing the original payment being refunded.

Initiating a Rejection or Refund

A payment is eligible for rejection or a refund when the possibleActions field in the GET Single payments is equal to reject.

Note: the reject value is used for both rejection and refund.

Initiating a rejection or a refund of a third party-initiated payment can be done by calling the Direct Debit rejection endpoint.

Note that the same Direct Debit payment cannot be rejected or refunded twice.

The rules around rejections and refunds vary from one scheme to another, as explained below:

SEPA Direct Debit Core (EUR)

SEPA Direct Debit payments can be rejected at any time before the payment is processed.
Otherwise, refund rules follow the SEPA Direct Debit Core rights, as explained below:

• You can request a refund within 8 weeks (no questions asked) from the value date of the collection.
• After the initial 8 weeks, you must contact us to start the unauthorized collection refund process (up to 13 months after the value date of the collection).

The reject action returned in the endpoint covers both "Rejection" and "Refund" as defined by the European Payment Council (EPC).

Note: Banking Circle does not support the SEPA Direct Debit B2B scheme (payments or collections).

Bacs Direct Debit (GBP)

Bacs Direct Debit payments can be rejected at any time before the payment is processed.
Otherwise, refund rules follow the Bacs Direct Debit rights, as below:

• You are entitled to a full refund under the Direct Debit Guarantee if a payment was taken incorrectly or without authorization.
• Refunds can be requested at any time with no time limit.

Note: the API will only allow you to request a refund after the collection date up to 4:30 pm CET one banking day (D+1) after the value date.

For any refunds after D+1, you must contact us to start the Indemnity Claim process.