SEPA Faster payment timings FAQs
What's changing?
Starting 11 September 2024 we’re reducing the time between the creation date of a new payment (either one-off or first recurring payment), and the charge date, from 3 days to just 1 day. That means you can set up and collect new payments faster – meaning more flexibility for how you collect payments, and improvements to your cash flow.
We're also making changes to the notification timings. These will now be sent on D-2 or D-1, depending on when the payment is created, rather than D-3. See table below for more detail.
What does this mean, specifically?
For payments you want charged on a given day (D), the deadline for creating the payment will change from 5:00 pm CET on D-3, to 5:30 am CET on D-1. The new timings will apply to all new payments created after 5:00pm CET 11 September 2024.
What are the current timings and exactly what timings will be changing?
| EVENT | CURRENT TIME | NEW TIME |
|---|---|---|
|
Creation deadline |
D-3, 5:00 pm CET |
D-1, 5.30 am CET |
|
Customer notification |
D-3, 10:00 am CET |
D-2, 10:00 am CET |
|
Collections submission |
D-2, 5:30 pm CET |
D- 1, 6:00 am CET |
|
Charge |
D |
D |
|
Confirmation |
D+1, 12:00 pm CET |
D+1, 12:00 pm CET |
|
Payouts submission |
D+2, from ~12:45 pm CET |
D+2, from ~12:45 pm CET |
|
Payout received |
D+3 |
D+3 |
|
Total |
Effectively 6 business days |
Effectively 4 business days |
For example:
Currently, if you wish to create a payment scheduled to be charged on Friday 20th, the creation of the payment must be done before 5:00 pm on Tuesday 17th. If you use GoCardless for your customer notifications, these are sent at 10am on Tuesday 17th if you created your payment before that time, or within 40 minutes of payment creation if you created your payment between 10:00 am on Tuesday 17th and the deadline of 5:00 pm on Tuesday 17th.
With the new timings, creating a payment scheduled to be charged on Friday 20th can be done as late as 5:30 am on Thursday 19th. Notifications for new payments will be sent on Wednesday 18th at 10:00 am for any payments created before that time, and for any payments set up after 10:00 am on Wednesday 18th but before the new cut off at 5:30 am on Thursday 19th, these will be notified within 40 minutes of payment creation.
Giving you more flexibility on when your payments are set up, and the ability to receive money in your bank account sooner.
Do I need to do anything?
No, we’re improving things for you automatically, behind the scenes.
If you use custom notifications, you may wish to adjust when you send you advance notice to align with when you choose to create a payment within these new timelines - just make sure that your customers are notified the day before their payment is due at the very latest. These can now be set up as late as D-1.
As mentioned, if you use GoCardless to send notifications to your customers, these will happen on the updated schedule from 11 September 2024.
Will I need to pay anything additional for the improved timings?
No! This will be included across all our plan options and will not come at an additional cost.