United Kingdom (GB_BACS_DEBIT)
Before you begin
Check your eligibility
Bacs direct debit is only available to customers who are onboarded to the Airwallex United Kingdom entity with a local United Kingdom Bank Account
- Platforms must ensure that only customers that are United Kingdom entities and onboarded to Airwallex United Kingdom are allowed to set up Bacs direct debit
- If you, as the Platform, would also like to use Bacs direct debit for your operational purposes, you must also be a United Kingdom entity onboarded to Airwallex United Kingdom
Settlement times
As indicated above, Bacs direct debit in the United Kingdom takes 4-5 business days to settle, depending on submission before/after the cut-off time. Therefore, we recommend leaving some buffer time ahead of the cut-off to avoid delays.
Customers who wish to accelerate the settlement time may apply for our Faster Direct Debit offering, which offers a shortened settlement time of 2-3 business days, and will settle before 11:30 AM GMT/BST. To enable this capability, please contact your Account Manager and confirm our terms, conditions, and fees.
Mandate requirements
To add funds via Bacs direct debit, your customers must first link their United Kingdom external bank accounts, as outlined in Linked Accounts.
The owner of the external bank account must agree with the Direct Debit Guarantee, displayed and signed according to UI guidance that will be shared by your relationship manager. You are also required to send the bank account owner a setup confirmation email after the Linked Bank Account is created, and an advance notice email 3 business days before each debit: both are available to you as white-labeled solutions.
Before any Bacs direct debit is processed, the owner of the external bank account must authorize Airwallex to directly debit the account on your behalf by agreeing to the Bacs Direct Debit Guarantee. A copy of the agreement will be sent by Airwallex via email to the bank account owner, and is stored and made available to be shared with the customer at all times. An advance notice email will also be sent 3 business days before each direct debit’s collection date.
The following is a guide to building your native product experience for your customers to link their external bank account and sign the mandate/agreement.
1. Linking an external bank account
The title should clearly inform your customers that they are linking an external bank account to set up direct debit.
You must ask the external bank account owner (or display their previously entered):
- Bank account name
- Bank account number
- Sort code
- Bank account owner's email address
- Bank account billing address
2. Confirmation of account details and direct debit authorization
The connected account customers must be given a prompt to confirm that their bank account details are correct before submitting the linked bank account.
- On the confirmation prompt, only the last 2 digits of the account number/sort code can be shown
There must be a checkbox or a similar mechanism for the external bank account owner to confirm that they are authorised to set up Direct Debit payments on the account.
The following Direct Debit Guarantee must be provided to the customer, exactly as shown and with the Direct Debit Guarantee logo included:
Direct Debit Guarantee
The Guarantee is offered by all banks and building societies that accept instructions to pay Direct Debits. If there are any changes to the amount, date or frequency of your Direct Debit, Airwallex (UK) Limited will notify you 2 working days in advance of your account being debited or as otherwise agreed. If you request Airwallex (UK) Limited to collect a payment, confirmation of the amount and date will be given to you at the time of the request. If an error is made in the payment of your Direct Debit, by Airwallex (UK) Limited or your bank or building society, you are entitled to a full and immediate refund of the amount paid from your bank or building society. If you receive a refund you are not entitled to, you must pay it back when Airwallex (UK) Limited asks you to. You can cancel a Direct Debit at any time by simply contacting your bank or building society. Written confirmation may be required. Please also notify us.
The following privacy notice wording should also be displayed:
By clicking “Confirm”, you are confirming that you are authorised to set up a Direct Debit Instruction on this account and you understand that Airwallex will be collecting Direct Debit on behalf of {merchant’s name}. Airwallex will appear on the statements of this account following each Direct Debit payment. Regulatory information regarding how Airwallex's partner processes your payments is available here , including the handling of personal data as outlined in their Privacy Notice .
The following wording or something to a similar effect should also be included:
This is the Instruction to your bank or building society to pay by Direct Debit. Please check these details are correct before selecting Confirm below. You can go back to make changes, or cancel the setup.
There should also be contact information for customer support.
3. Confirmation of direct debit set up
You should provide a confirmation page that the connected account customer will receive notification within 3 business days confirming that the mandate has been set up.
It is also recommended that you provide a confirmation page to your customers at the end of the process to inform them that direct debit has been successfully set up for the Linked Bank Account.
API Instructions
1. Create Linked Account with direct debit mandate
Referring to Linked Account requirements for direct debit, both BUSINESS and INDIVIDUAL Linked Account types are supported for Bacs direct debit in the United Kingdom.
Micro-deposit and Open Banking are both available for this scheme. Please follow the instructions in Create a Linked Account and submit the required mandate information under the mandate object.
For GB_BACS_DEBIT, the preferred_reference field can be used and should not exceed 10 characters. This is the reference that will show up for all direct debit deposits under this Linked Account. We may add a unique ID after your preferred reference per the scheme requirements.
Example request for Linked Account created using micro-deposit verification
If you are registered as a platform account, you can call this endpoint on behalf of your customers by specifying the open ID in the x-on-behalf-of header.
Example response
Example request for Linked Account created using Open Banking verification
If you are registered as a platform account, you can call this endpoint on behalf of your customers by specifying the open ID in the x-on-behalf-of header.
Example response
If you already have a Linked Account created using micro-deposit verification, you may call Update a Direct Debit Mandate API to create the mandate.
After creating the Linked Account or updating the direct debit mandate, Airwallex will return the status as SUCCEEDED. Bacs mandates take 3-4 days to be activated, during which your Linked Account status will remain as PROCESSING.
Review status codes to track status transitions when Linked Accounts are created and verified.
Example request
If you are registered as a platform account, you can call this endpoint on behalf of your customers by specifying the open ID in the x-on-behalf-of header.
Example response
2. Create direct debit deposit
Before creating a direct debit deposit, please ensure that you have a sufficient funding limit by checking your available funding limit.
If the Linked Account was created using Open Banking verification, you may use Check available balance API to ensure that the Linked Account has sufficient balance before initiating a direct debit deposit.
Next, follow the instructions outlined in Create a direct debit deposit. Please note that the Becs direct debit does not support unique references for each direct debit deposit. Instead, a reference must be provided at the mandate level when Creating a Linked Account with direct debit mandate, which will apply to all direct debit deposits initiated from this Linked Account.
Example request
If you are registered as a platform account, you can call this endpoint on behalf of your customers by specifying the open ID in the x-on-behalf-of header.
Example response
Clearing system error codes
To help you handle exceptions systematically, this page provides a comprehensive list of all possible clearing system errors and detailed descriptions when the direct debit deposit or the Linked Accounts are in failure status, or when the Linked Account is in a REQUIRES_ACTION status.
We recommend using the Airwallex error code or the iso_code for systematic exception handling. The code from provider_failure_details can be used for troubleshooting against the clearing system rules, but it is not advised for systematic handling because the clearing system may update it from time to time.
Linked Account error codes
| code | iso code | provider failure details code | description |
|---|---|---|---|
other | NARR | NARR | Reason has not been specified. Contact the payer or payer’s bank for further information. |
Direct debit deposit error codes
| code | iso code | provider failure details code | description |
|---|---|---|---|
refer_to_payer | NARR | 0 | Contact the payer or payer’s bank for further information. |
requested_by_customer | CUST | 1 | Instruction is cancelled by the payer. Contact the payer for further information. |
end_customer_deceased | MD07 | 2 | You cannot create a direct debit against the payer’s bank account because the payer is deceased. Contact the payer’s bank for further instructions. |
account_transferred | NARR | 3 | The payer’s bank account has been transferred to a new bank. You must create a new mandate with the payer. |
advance_notice_disputed | NARR | 4 | The payer disputes the time, amount or frequency of the advance notice and has requested to return/reject this direct debit. You should not create further direct debits under this mandate until the dispute has been resolved. |
invalid_debtor_account_number | AC02 | 5 | The payer’s bank account number is invalid. Please confirm the account number with the payer. |
no_mandate | MD01 | 6 | The direct debit mandate is not present. Please confirm that the payer or payer's bank has not cancelled the mandate before contacting your account manager for further information. |
wrong_amount | AM09 | 7 | The payer disputes that the debit amount differs from the amount agreed or expected. |
collection_not_due | MD05 | 8 | The payer claims the debit date is prior to the date specified in the advance notice. Contact your account manager for further information. |
presentation_overdue | NARR | 9 | The payer claims the debit date is later than the date specified in the advance notice. Contact your account manager for further information. |
closed_debtor_account_number | AC05 | B | The payer’s bank account is closed. Contact the payer to reopen the account, or create a new mandate to charge a different bank account. |