Table of Contents. Information on the key changes 2, 3 & 4. Changes to the Single Payment, Template and Bulk Payment Screens 5 & 6

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1 Some Important improvements to Bankline for SEPA March 2015 From 15th March 2015 you will notice some important changes to Bankline. We have introduced these changes to meet requirements set out under the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) Regulation. These changes will allow you to make and manage your payments in a SEPA format. Please note these changes do not refer to Bankline SEPA Money Transfer Credit Transfers or Direct Debit Origination. These optional services were already upgraded to a SEPA format in Table of Contents Chapter Page(s) Information on the key changes 2, 3 & 4 Changes to the Single Payment, Template and Bulk Payment Screens 5 & 6 Changes to the Same Day (urgent domestic) payment screens 7 Changes to the International Payments Screen 8 & 9 Payment processing and cut off times 10 & 11 New payment narratives 11 1

2 What are the changes? When setting up new Domestic, Inter Account and Intra Bank payments you must use a valid BIC & IBAN. We have converted your existing templates and bulk lists on Bankline to a SEPA format. All you have to do is ensure that, where required, any new payments you add are inputted using a BIC & IBAN. You can now make Same Day Standard Domestic and Bulk payments if the payments are authorised by This means the payment will be made available to the payee/beneficiary s bank by close of business that day. Some payment types will process differently. As a result early availability of funds to payees will not continue after this upgrade. For information on this change and how it may impact your future payments and payroll please refer to page 10. You can add an additional message to a payment of up to 140 characters which can be viewed by the payment beneficiary. The real time status of when your payments have processed fully is now more accurate. More information on the key changes What are BIC & IBAN? IBAN stands for International Bank Account Number and was created as a practical international bank account identifier, used internationally to uniquely identify the account of a customer at a financial institution. An Irish IBAN has 22 characters and an example of an Irish IBAN is: IE7OULSB (the fourteen digits capture the Account Number & Sort Code). The IBAN can be found on customer/beneficiaries bank statements or you can use the BIC & IBAN conversion tool which can be found on the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland website at BIC or Bank Identifier Code is a unique address which identifies the bank involved in financial transactions. When used in conjunction with the IBAN it identifies the bank at which the account of the beneficiary is held. A BIC can also be found on bank statements or you can use the BIC & IBAN conversion tool which can be found on the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland website at As an example, the Ulster Bank BIC is ULSBIE2DXXX. Which payments require BIC and IBAN for the beneficiary/payee? All Standard Domestic payments including bulk payments All Inter Account Transfers including currency SEPA International Payments (unchanged from previous requirements). How do I find the BIC & IBAN of a payee? You will need to contact them directly or you can use the BIC and IBAN conversion tool which can be found on the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland website at The payee s BIC and IBAN will be clearly marked on their bank account statement. 2

3 What payments are still using sort code and account number? Urgent Domestic payments (Same Day) will remain in Sort Code and Account Number format. This can be used for sending urgent payments up to a cut-off of However they are more expensive than Standard payments. Will my Import file format change? Although the file format will remain in the current CSV format some changes will be required i.e. Sort Code and Account Number will need to be changed to BIC and IBAN, and additional references are available. Please contact our SEPA Migration help desk to migrate to the new Bankline File Import service. You can contact the team on (00353) from to Monday to Friday excluding bank holidays. Will my debit account details change to BIC and IBAN? Your debit account details will also be changed on Bankline screens to BIC and IBAN for all payment types with the exception of Urgent Domestic payments. Will these changes mean payments reach the beneficiary sooner than at present? You can now take advantage of making a domestic payment before which will be processed on the same day without incurring an urgent payment charge. Previously this payment would have been processed the next day. Are Bankline charges changing? There is no change to the charges for Bankline payments. Are Bankline descriptions changing? In the Charges Notifications there will be a new charge description entitled "UBR SEPA Domestic Payment. This new charge line will include any SEPA domestic charges accrued from the 15th March 2015 onwards. Any next day (Standard Domestic) payment charges accrued before the 15th March 2015 will appear under the existing charge description (Ulster Bank (UBR) Next Day Value Payment) which will be removed in due course. This is not a new charge merely a more accurate description of the payment type. For a brief period you will also see the old description Ulster Bank (UBR) Next Day Payment and the new description UBR SEPA Domestic Payment as shown in the illustration on the next page. Are there any other improvements to Bankline as a result of this upgrade? We will now be able to provide you with an even more accurate real time status of when your payments have processed fully. This change was designed to give up to date feedback on your payments as they process through our systems. 3

4 Charges accrued before the 15 th March 15 will be shown as Ulster Bank (UBR) Next Day Value Payment charges and charges accrued after the 15 th March 15 will be shown as UBR SEPA Domestic Payment charges. 4

5 Changes to the Single Payment, Template and Bulk Payment Screens What changes are being made to the Single Payment/Template screens/bulk payment screens? The Debit account will be converted to BIC & IBAN. As in the illustration below, the BIC for the account to be debited will be pre-populated and is a read-only field. Where you have only one debit account number, that will be converted to an IBAN and is a read only field. If you have more than one debit account, you can use the Account look up screen to select the debit account. This will then populate the field with the debit IBAN. Your debit account sort code is replaced with your BIC. Your debit account number will be replaced by your IBAN. 5

6 Beneficiary details, for non international payments, will be converted to BIC and IBAN, and a new 140 character reference for the beneficiary will become available If you do not enter a beneficiary reference it will default to the account short name which will be visible to the payment beneficiary. The exception to the above is Urgent Domestic templates (Same Day) which will be unchanged. How can I add a message or reference to a payment? You can now also add a message to the payment beneficiary of up to 140 characters with each payment. You can enter a beneficiary reference here You can enter a 140 character message to the payment beneficiary here. On the new domestic payment screens you will find a new section entitled Information for the beneficiary, as shown in the diagram above. To send a message, insert your 140 character message by populating the four lines with a maximum of 35 characters per line. This message will then be available for the beneficiary to view. Bulk list, SEPA payments, Single payments and File Import can all support these messages to beneficiaries. 6

7 Changes to the Same Day (urgent domestic) payment screens Are there changes being made to the Same Day (urgent domestic) payment screens? The Same Day Domestic payments screens will continue to cater for Urgent Domestic payments. You will continue to use sort codes and account numbers for your debit and credit details when using this payment screen. These urgent payment transaction fees will not change however you will now see a new message advising you that you can send a same day SEPA payment via the Standard Domestic payment menu option for the same price as a next day payment if you authorise the payment before Below is an illustration of what the new message will look like: 7

8 Changes to the International Payments Screen What changes are being made to the SEPA International payments screen? You will still use BIC & IBAN when setting up International payments to other countries in the SEPA zone. The sort code of the account to be debited has been replaced with a BIC and is defaulted to the read-only value of ULSBIE2DXXX and the Debit account number has been replaced with IBAN. The sort code of the account to be debited has been replaced with a BIC. The account number of the account to be debited has been replaced with an IBAN. 8

9 Does the way I set up payments to countries that don t use BIC and IBAN change? No, there is no change to the beneficiary account details that you provide when making payments to countries that do not use BIC and IBAN, such as those outside the SEPA zone. Some countries (such as the USA, Canada and Australia) may require a National Clearing Code (NCC). Bankline will continue to present the appropriate BIC, IBAN, NCC and Account Number fields for you to complete depending on which country the beneficiary s bank is in. How to add a beneficiary message to a payment being sent to a bank IN the SEPA zone. You can add a message to the beneficiary with each payment (for example an invoice number or customer number). You can also add up to three lines of text in each message. If no beneficiary reference is entered then we will insert the short account name for the default debit account you have selected. How to add a beneficiary message to a payment being sent to a bank OUTSIDE the SEPA zone. If you want to send a message with the payment you should insert your message in the Information for the beneficiary section. For SEPA payments you can enter a beneficiary reference and also 140 character message for the beneficiary. For payments outside the SEPA zone you can enter a 140 character message for the beneficiary only. When will the beneficiary receive their funds? SEPA International payments will be sent to the beneficiary bank by the close of business of the next business day. The precise time at which the beneficiary receives availability of the funds varies from bank to bank. 9

10 Payment processing and cut off times Will there be changes to payment processing? Yes. Payments going to non Ulster Bank payees will process differently. Early availability of funds to payees will not continue after this upgrade as payments will be processed on the date you have requested the payment to arrive, rather than the working day before. Payments executed today before 2pm, with today s date, will be sent to the beneficiary s bank today. Future dated payments (including next day payments) will leave Ulster Bank on the morning of the date the payment was requested to arrive with the beneficiary. e.g. a payment with a requested payment date of Friday 20 th March 2015 will be sent by Ulster Bank to the payee s Bank on Friday morning and will be debited from your account that same morning. The credit will be applied to the payee s account once their bank applies the funds to their account. The below table illustrates the change: Date of debit posting to customer s Date of credit posting to payee s Date of availability of funds for payee account account Payment processing before SEPA Thurs, 19th March 2015 Fri, 20th March2015 Thurs, 19th March 2015 Payment process after SEPA Fri, 20th March 2015 Fri, 20th March 2015 Fri, 20th March 2015 This additional table illustrates the changes to payment processing in a weekend situation: Date of debit posting to customer s Date of credit posting to payee s Date of availability of funds for payee account account Payment processing before SEPA Fri, 20th March 2015 Mon - 23 rd March2015 Sat, 21 st March 2015 Payment process after SEPA Mon, 23 rd March 2015 Mon, 23 rd March 2015 Mon, 23 RD March 2015 Important note: Payments going to Ulster Bank payees will continue to process as they did in the past except when they are included in a mixed bulk list containing other payments going to non UB payees. In this instance all payments in the Bulk list will process as illustrated in the table above. 10

11 Are cut off times changing? Yes, the cut off times for SEPA Domestic payments are changing. To date payments authorised before were sent to the beneficiary s bank on the next working day. From 15 th March 2015 SEPA domestic payments authorised before will be sent to the beneficiary s bank on the same day. SEPA Domestic payments authorised after will be diarised for processing at the next day and will be debited and credited on that day. The cut off time for SEPA International payments will remain unchanged. If they are authorised by they will continue to be sent as Next Day Value payments. The cut off time for Same Day Urgent Domestic payments from the Same Day payments screen will remain unchanged. If they are authorised up to the payment will be send as an urgent payment however additional charges may apply. Important information: The above scenarios are all under the assumption there are available funds/sufficient cleared balance on the account. The precise time at which the beneficiary receives availability of the funds varies from bank to bank. New payment narratives How to understand the new payment narratives On some payments you will see additional detail for inbound SEPA domestic payments and outbound single SEPA domestic payments including Inter Account Transfers. The following information will be available for you to view on your Inbound Bankline SEPA domestic payments Transaction code = BAC Narrative Line 1 = Originator name Narrative Line 2 = Beneficiary reference Narrative Line 3 = First 18 characters of Information for the beneficiary or a dot,. if none Narrative Line 4 = Ulster Bank reference The following information will be available for you to view for SEPA Domestic payments you send (including Inter Account Transfer): Transaction code = EBP Narrative Line 1 = Beneficiary name Narrative Line 2 = Your reference Narrative Line 3 = Ulster Bank reference Ulster Bank Ireland Limited. A private company limited by shares, trading as Ulster Bank, Ulster Bank Group and Banc Uladh. Registered in Republic of Ireland. Registered No Registered Office: Ulster Bank Group Centre, George s Quay, Dublin 2. Member of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. Ulster Bank Ireland Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Calls may be recorded. 11