A scheme is a mechanism to differentiate different Direct Debit processing approaches. In SEPA, CORE and B2B are the principal schemes; in the UK Bacs Direct Debit is used

Scheme Overview

Before you can begin to create a mandate/DDI or add Direct Debit payments, you must first decide on the payment scheme that you want to use.

If you intend to:

  • Process EUR payments and your customers are not other businesses or corporate entities, then you’d process through the SEPA CORE scheme.
  • Conduct business with other corporates then the SEPA B2B scheme may be appropriate.
  • Process GBP payments then you will need to generate DDIs and collect payments through the Bacs Direct Debit scheme.

Each scheme has its own distinct requirements. So, for example:

  • In B2B there are no refunds possible after 3 business days; for SEPA CORE, payers can request a no-questions-asked refund up to 8 weeks after the inital collection date. In Bacs a refund is only possible in specific cases (e.g. the amount or the collection date pre-notified to the payer was incorrect) and there is no time limit on when the refund may be processed.
  • In SEPA your business is identified through a Creditor Scheme Identifier (CSID), in Bacs this identifier is referred to as the Service User Number (SUN).

For more on these differences see the overview table on Scheme Differences.

To decide on what scheme best suits your business, please discuss your requirements with your account manager who will be happy to assist.

A member of the Nuapay Customer Support team will configure your CSID or SUN for you on both the Sandbox and Production environments.

Using the Scheme in the API

In terms of interacting with the various Mandate/DDI and Direct Debit API services, the scheme you use is essential as it is the foundation on which all your requests are built.

As outlined in the General API Rules section, the CSID or SUN is referenced in the URI where, for example, you:

  • Create a mandate/DDI via a POST request: /schemes/abxq9kq52l/mandates (note that abxq9kq52l is the resource identifier of the scheme in this example)
  • Retrieve a Direct Debit through a GET /schemes/abxq9kq52l/mandates/rtsxq8kaby5/directdebits/eshw2137gfc (in this case rtsxq8kaby5 is the mandate identifier; eshw2137gfc is the Direct Debit transaction identifier)

To retrieve the resource identifier for the scheme you want to use in your Nuapay processing, check out the List Schemes service.