Presentation

With the implementation of the second European Payment Services Directive (PSD2), banks were required to open their information systems. This has allowed new stakeholders and services to appear.

One of them was payment initiation, also called transfer initiation.

This payment service allows the merchant to initiate a credit transfer request sent to the buyer’s bank.

The merchant is prompted to validate the transaction via their online banking space.

The funds are then transferred via a classic SEPA Credit Transfer or SEPA Instant Credit Transfer, depending on the buyer’s choice.

Depending on the country, some banks do not offer the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (e.g: ING France). In this case, the request is processed as a classic SEPA transfer.

In theory, the execution time of a SEPA Instant Credit Transfer is about 10s. Funds are available immediately via the merchant.