About
SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) is the euro pull-payment scheme managed by the European Payments Council (EPC), live since 2009. The payer signs a paper or electronic mandate authorising a biller to collect; the biller's bank then sends each collection to the payer's bank on the due date, so the payer takes no action per payment, which suits subscriptions, utilities and instalments. Under the Core scheme consumers can claim a no-questions-asked refund within 8 weeks, or 13 months if unauthorised; a separate B2B scheme removes that refund right. In 2026 the EPC put the two schemes' combined use at over 21 billion transactions a year.
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