SEPA-fication of payments

Impetus

I’ve had several invoices from Irish companies since the country finally woke up to SEPA and the idea of direct payment to the beneficiary’s bank account – all asking for remittance advices, which is a total waste of time.

The other annoying, 30 year old habit is of citing the British sorting code number and 8 digit account number for an Irish bank account – which is irrelevant in the SEPA era. Ireland departed from the British banking system/currency in 1978 over 30 years ago, continues to use the British system, one asks for a payee's bank co-ordinates.

Most of the rest of Europe has been using giro (ie not using cheques) for the past fifty years or more to pay bills, and the norm is to specify a payee reference number/ID on each payment (eg an account number or an invoice number). In that way, the receiver of the funds receives this reference on their bank statement next to the payment (or the XML equivalent) for payment matching.

Irish companies in my experience do not display their IBAN on an invoice, nor the reference they require to match a payment to their receivables. This reference and IBAN should be screaming out loud on an invoice layout. In much of the rest of Europe it is impossible to make a payment without citing the IBAN and payee reference. Better still include an IBAN barcode that allows the data to be captured machine accurately with the click of a barcode reader.

It is almost like the stupid Ryanair boarding pass where the seat number is hidden in a page of spam "advertising", which ends up in passengers wasting precious minutes when boarding (trying to find their seat etc). On an aircraft that costs the best part of USD 40 million.

Ireland is a country of appalling and thoughtless design - an issue which is costing the country €€€€€€€€€€€€€€.

https://www.fkl.fi/en/material/publications/Publications/Bank_bar_code_guide.pdf

smcgiff

Moved from Accounting Forum. Economics charter applies.

Impetus

This issue has little to do with economics and everything to do with accounting. If was of economic significance, I would have posted it here.

It goes without saying that the matching of incoming bank payments with a company’s accounts is an accounting issue……

andrew

I could move this to the Irish economy forum, but since you (rightly) point out that this is an accounting issue, I'm not sure that'd help. I'll close this thread if you don't think there's much point in moving it, OP.

Impetus

andrew wrote: »

I could move this to the Irish economy forum, but since you (rightly) point out that this is an accounting issue, I'm not sure that'd help. I'll close this thread if you don't think there's much point in moving it, OP.

Why not put it back in the Accounting forum where it was originally?

"Moved from Accounting Forum. Economics charter applies. "

andrew

Impetus wrote: »

Why not put it back in the Accounting forum where it was originally?

"Moved from Accounting Forum. Economics charter applies. "

Had a chat with the mod, back to accounting it is so

Cian92

I have to say I disagree with you on this SEPA system.

First off I could remember my sort code and account number. The IBAN is so long there isn't a chance I'd remember it.

Secondly, normally work pays us at midnight, SEPA takes so long that the bank has now issued guidelines that our money may not be in until 10.30am. (It has consistently been later than 10.30am in my case - teething problems I'm told).

Lots of people I've worked with have direct debits coming out at 8am, so 10.30am is too late.

It now takes longer to transfer money within Ireland.

The only advantage of it is sending payments within the European Area and anytime I want to do that it can be done via Paypal.

srsly78

And paypal takes a cut, whereas sepa transfer is free.

SEPA does not cause slowdowns, Irish banks and employers being muppets does. The old system would use a batch of direct debits to pay wages - a file would be created and sent to the bank. Despite years of preparation they clearly do not have similar systems/procedures in place for SEPA yet. It should take the same amount of time.