The SEPA Business Service (SBS) for processing Direct Debits against Business Debtors closes on February 1st 2016.

All Debtors, including Business Debtors, will be able to claim a “no quibble” refund for up to eight weeks on all SEPA Direct Debits posted to their Account on or after February 1st, 2016.

The SBS scheme was originally introduced to give Creditors confidence that monies collected from Business Customers by Direct Debit under the SEPA Scheme would not be automatically refunded by their Bank in the event of a claim from the Debtor. This was a reasonable measure during the initial SEPA implementation and in the absence of the SEPA B2B Scheme being offered by Irish Banks.

If you’ve not been operating under the SBS Scheme, there’s no impact on you and nothing you need to do.

If you have been operating under the SBS Scheme, the only thing you MUST do is to communicate with your Debtors and inform them that the Refund Waiver they previously signed will no longer be in place after February 1st.

There are a number of other things you may wish to such as consolidate your Creditor Originator IDs or remove the “B8S” identifier from the start of each Debtors Name but these are optional actions and not compulsory requirements.

If you use our DEFT product to process your Direct Debits under SEPA, you will be able to handle any option you choose and without any need to get your Debtors to Sign new Mandates or to change their UMR.

Email us at sepa@ardbrook.ie or phone us on +353 (0)1 8382921 to find out more.