SEPA Direct Debit is a pan-European payment scheme introduced in 2009 that enables businesses and individuals to collect euro-denominated payments directly from bank accounts anywhere within the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). The scheme is governed by the European Payments Council (EPC) and standardizes the rules, message formats, and processing timelines for direct debit transactions across all participating countries.
To read more about how the direct debit logic behind SEPA Direct Debit works, have a look at Direct Debit.
Key features about SEPA Direct Debit:
- Mandate management – the debtor signs a SEPA mandate authorizing the creditor to initiate one-off or recurring direct debit collections from their account.
- Creditor Identifier (CI) – a unique identifier assigned to each organization collecting payments, ensuring full traceability of every transaction back to the originating creditor.
- IBAN-based – all transactions are identified using the International Bank Account Number (IBAN), replacing country-specific account formats and enabling seamless cross-border euro collections.
See also: Direct Debit, Autogiro