SEPA FAQs

SEPA creates a fast, safe and efficient borderless payment system throughout the SEPA countries and territories.

SEPA covers Euro denominated transactions only.

There are three payment types involved in SEPA:
- SEPA Credit Transfer Scheme
- SEPA Direct Debit Scheme
- SEPA Cards Framework

There are 27* EU member states and a number of additional SEPA zone territories

The 27* EU States:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic,  Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

Other countries and territories, which tend to change periodically.

Aland Islands, Andorra, Azores, Canary Islands, French Guiana, Gibraltar, Guadeloupe, Guernsey, Iceland, Isle of Man, Jersey, Liechtenstein, Madeira, Martinique, Mayotte, Monaco, Norway, Reunion, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, San Marino, Switzerland, Vatican City and United Kingdom*.

*Please note: While the United Kingdom is no longer an EU state or EEA country, it will remain a SEPA reachable country.

Further information on SEPA and SEPA implementation can be found here

SEPA related queries can be directed to sepa@aib.ie or 0818 72 0000.

A Bank Identifier Code (BIC), also known as the SWIFT Address, is a unique identification code for a specific financial institution. BIC is no longer mandatory for SEPA payments.

AIB’s BIC is AIBKIE2D

BIC codes consist of either 8 or 11 alphanumeric characteristics and can be verified using the following website: www.swift.com/biconline

The International Bank Account Number (IBAN) is a standardised European bank account number.  The IBAN is now  the sole payment account identifier for electronic national, international and cross-border credit transfers and direct debits in Euro within the EU.

The IBAN is not a new account number and does not replace an account holder’s existing bank account details. Additional characters are added to form the verifiable and unique IBAN for each account that is already in place.

The following is an example of an IBAN for an Irish Bank Account:

IE33AIBK93123487654321

IE                      Country Code for the Republic of Ireland

33                     Two digit check number

AIBK                 First four digits of Bank Identifier Code (BIC)

931234            National Sort Code

87654321        Account Number

Details of your IBAN and AIB’s BIC are printed on your account statement. You can also refer to your account holding branch or Relationship Manager for this information. Your BIC and IBAN can also be found on most online banking services, such as AIB Internet Banking and iBusiness Banking (iBB).

Please refer to the intended receiver of your payments to obtain their respective IBAN details for outgoing payments.

You will be able to get your customers’ BIC and IBAN by:

1. Going directly to your customers
2. Using the BIC and IBAN conversion service provided by the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) for use by both individual consumers and businesses. This service will enable bank customers to convert their existing NSCs (national sort codes) and account numbers to the BIC and IBAN standard required for SEPA. For further information on how this BIC and IBAN conversion service works please visit the BPFI website www.bfpi.ie

Note: The BIC and IBAN conversion service is free of charge.

The SCT scheme ensures customers can make electronic payments to any customer located anywhere in the SEPA zone using a single bank account (IBAN) and a uniform set of standards, rules and conditions. For example, an Irish customer with a holiday home in Spain can now pay all utility bills relating to the Spanish property from one domestic account in Ireland. Also, foreign nationals working in Ireland may have their salaries paid directly into their domestic account, eliminating the need to open many different bank accounts.

If you upload and authorise the payment file on iBB by 16:00, the beneficiary will receive the money on the next business day. For example, if the beneficiary is supposed to receive funds on the 28th March, the file must be submitted on iBB by 16:00 on 27th March.

The SDD scheme is an interbank payment scheme defining a common set of rules and standard procedures for direct debits in Euro. The scheme ensures a common level of service within the participating countries. The file submission timeframes under the scheme rules is 1 business banking day for all SEPA Direct Debit payments. 

This is required to allow for submission cut-off times and internal processing.

Financial institutions must also provide SEPA-wide access, meaning that Direct Debits can be made from any domestic account to any receiver within the participating countries. For example, an Irish customer with a holiday home in Spain may pay all utility bills relating to the Spanish property from one domestic account in Ireland.

The SDD scheme provides for both recurring and once-off payments in Euro, allowing a customer to make a once-off major purchase, such as a car, and pay by direct debit. IBAN must be used, and a comprehensive set of rules for rejected and returned payments is provided.

AIB’s clearing cycle for a SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) is one AIB business banking day prior to the collection date of a payment.

Files can be submitted a maximum of D-30 where D=Debit Date and -30 = 30 calendar days before the debit date. SDD files containing any FRST, RCUR, OOFF and/or FNAL sequence types must be submitted by the originator on D-1 at a minimum.

The D-1 timeframe is based on the TARGET calendar. Normal TARGET working days are Monday to Friday. There are 6 TARGET holiday days each year: New Year’s Day 1st January, Good Friday, Easter Monday, May Day 1st May, Christmas Day, Stephen’s Day. SEPA settlements are closed on these days, which will affect the execution timelines. These TARGET holidays will impact the file delivery and settlement cycles, even if it is a normal working day in Ireland.

On Irish holiday funds will not be credited to / debited from Customers accounts even if the day is a TARGET day.

• A new SEPA Creditor ID will be issued by AIB.
• You will need to submit payment files to iBB a minimum of one business banking day in advance for a first, once off, recurring or final payment collection.
• You will have responsibility for the creation of a unique mandate reference (UMR) for each new SEPA mandate, and mandate details will travel with every collection on the XML file.
• Mandates and mandate storage is the sole responsibility of the originator.
• The debtor must be pre-notified of the collection at least 14 calendar days before the actual collection takes place.

FRST – Can be used for the first collection in a series of SEPA DDs and submitted at least 1 business banking day prior to the required collection date.

Note that, if the collection is rejected or returned post-settlement or pre-settlement, the collection can be re-submitted as a FRST or RCUR.

RCUR - Can be used for SEPA DD transactions, which form part of a series of collections and submitted at least one business banking day prior to the required collection date.

FNAL - To be used to signify the final SDD collection in a series and submitted at least one business banking day prior to the required collection date. A RCUR transaction code may also be used in this situation and will not reject. In this case, the mandate will remain valid for a further 36 months.

OOFF - To be used for once-off SDD collections and submitted at least one banking business day prior to the required collection date. A Unique Mandate Reference (UMR), which is used for an OOFF transaction, cannot be used for a second time.

Note that, if the collection is rejected or returned pre-settlement, it will be necessary to re-submit the collection as an OOFF with the same UMR. If the collection is rejected or returned post-settlement, the collection must be submitted as a new OOFF with a new UMR.

The fee is €0.07 per payment, with a minimum charge of €6.35 per month.

We accrue fees each month and charge them to your billing account every quarter (Dec-Feb, March-May, June-August, Sept-Nov). We will give you a detailed breakdown of the fees we are charging 10 days in advance.

Once you authorise a file we will assume it will be processed and charge you for each transaction in the file, whether or not the payment goes through.

*If there is not enough money in your account on the day you want the payment to go through, we will reject the file, with the narrative “Failed for funds – Auto retry”. We will try to put the payment through right up to 10 minutes before the 16:00 deadline, to give you time to put money into the account. We do this automatically so you don’t need to authorise the payment again, you just need to fund the account to cover the payment.