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SEPA Direct Debit (SDD)

SEPA Direct Debit Business to Business Scheme (SDD B2B)

On this page, you will find the SDD B2B Scheme Rulebook and associated documentation which are currently in effect (since 17 November 2012).

The SDD B2B Scheme enables business customers in the role of payers to make payments by direct debit. The SDD Schemes offer businesses significant efficiency gains through the automation of payment processing and the ability of businesses to optimise the cash management process. The latter can be achieved by businesses consolidating accounts currently maintained in different European countries, so that all payments are managed in one single account, thereby centralising liquidity.

The SDD Schemes facilitate the expansion of businesses across national borders by introducing a standardised payment infrastructure. The SDD Schemes therefore support trade across the European Union internal market. Innovative end-to-end Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) solutions, based on global standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), will also lead to decreased IT costs, streamlined back office functions and simplified reconciliation. The economy as a whole will also benefit if invoices are paid when they are due. The business community depends on reliable cash flow and the SDD Schemes enable the biller to collect payments on the exact due date.

The SDD B2B Scheme, in particular, fully supports the intra-European supply chain management of companies on the financial side.

It is optional for payment service providers (PSPs) to offer services based on the SDD B2B Scheme.

The differences between the SDD Core Scheme and the SDD B2B Scheme:

  • Services and products based on the SDD B2B Scheme are only available to businesses; the payer must not be a private individual (consumer).
  • In the SDD B2B Scheme the payer (a business) is not entitled to obtain a refund of an authorised transaction.
  • The SDD B2B Scheme requires the payer's bank to ensure that the collection is authorised by checking the collection against mandate information. The payer's bank and the payer are required to agree on the verification to be performed for each SEPA B2B direct debit.

  • Responding to the specific needs of the business community the SDD B2B Scheme offers a significantly shorter timeline for presenting direct debits and a reduced return period.

Use of scheme options

The SDD B2B Rulebook provides PSPs participating in the scheme with the opportunity to offer optional scheme features. To date, no communities or groups of individual SDD B2B scheme participants have informed the European Payments Council (EPC) about the use of one or more of the optional features included in the SDD B2B Rulebook. If and when the EPC will receive such information, the EPC will publish contact information to obtain the list of individual scheme participants using the option(s) as well as information about how the option(s) is (are) applied within a community or between groups of individual SDD B2B scheme participants.

EPC technical documents