This API provides the ability for authorised payment initiation service providers (PISPs, TPPs – third party providers) to initiate and set up new domestic, international, file based and variable recurring payments. The TPPs will be able to initiate requests directly from the customer’s (PSU- payment service user) current - personal or business - accounts, after being granted consent. Within Domestic Payments, Faster and CHAPS immediate payments can be initiated. This API is developed according to the Open Banking Read/Write API Specifications and fulfils PSD2 regulation, see https://www.openbanking.org.uk

Key Features:

• Domestic payments (in GBP)
• Domestic scheduled payments (in GBP)
• Domestic standing orders (in GBP)
• International payments
• File payments (Domestic payments in GBP, File Status & Report File)
• Variable Recurring Payments

This Version:

This version introduces endpoints to support the processing of Variable Recurring Payments. These include:

• POST /domestic-vrp-consents
• GET /domestic-vrp-consents/{ConsentId}
• DELETE /domestic-vrp-consents/{ConsentId}
• POST /domestic-vrp-consents/{ConsentId}/funds-confirmation
• POST /domestic-vrps
• GET /domestic-vrps/{DomesticVRPId}

Previous Version Notes:

Domestic Payments

Santander do not support the object "Authorisation" for the domestic-payment-consents endpoint. If a PISP consent request is received with this object, it will be rejected as a HTTP 400 BAD request.

International Payments

Santander implemented a number of improvements aimed at enhancing the customer experience by offering a wider range of services for which the Open Banking – payment initiation functionality can be applied. All instructions will be setup through the chosen and authorised third party provider for a specific amount, to a specific payee, on a specific future date / on a number of specified future dates or on a regular basis and initiated and executed by Santander.

There are 3 new Supplementary data items within the International Payment endpoint:

• DestinationCountry (an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code) is compulsory, against which mandatory & optional fields can be validated for immediate international payments.
• NCCCode and NCCIdentification are available for several country destinations, where a National Clearing Code (NCC) can be indicated for routing in addition to a Mandatory BI.
• For payments to USA an NCC (Fedwire) can optionally be specified instead of a BIC if the transfer currency is USD.
  
  

N -Numeric Characters only

A - Alphanumeric characters permitted

Supported currencies that are available to process an international payment are:

AED AUD CAD CHF CZK DKK EUR GBP

HKD HUF ILS INR JPY MAD MXN NOK

NZD PHP PLN SEK SGD THB USD ZAR

International payment requests to Santander UK will be processed in alignment with existing operational cut off times (Same Day EUR: 10:00am ; SEPA D+1: 1:00pm ; CHAPS: 4:00pm; International: 2:00pm(excluding Same Day EUR and SEPA D+1)) during business days. Any payments that are submitted outside of these hours will be processed on the next business day.

Santander do not support "InstructionPriority" for the international-payment-consents endpoint. If a PISP consent request is received with this, it will be rejected as a HTTP 400 BAD request.

Santander only support DebtorAccount/SchemeName equal to UK.OBIE.SortCodeAccountNumber or SortCodeAccountNumber for the international-payment-consents endpoint, when populated in the request. If a PISP consent request is received with a different DebtorAccount/SchemeName, (or with a DebtorAccount structure but the SchemeName value = NULL), it will be rejected as a HTTP 400 BAD request.

Santander only support a CreditorAgent/SchemeName of UK.OBIE.BICFI or BICFI for the international-payment-consents endpoint. If a PISP consent request is received with a different CreditorAgent/SchemeName, (or with UK.OBIE.BICFI or BICFI but further validations are not passed), it will be rejected as a HTTP 400 BAD request. A request for sending USD to US can provide the NCCCode and NCCIdentification in SupplementaryData instead of the CreditorAgent SchemeName and Identification (see below).

Santander only support an international payment request where the CreditorAccount/SchemeName is UK.OBIE.IBAN or UK.Santander.OtherAccount (or IBAN or OtherAccount) for the international-payment-consents endpoint. If a PISP consent request is received with a different CreditorAccount/SchemeName it will be rejected as a HTTP 400 BAD request.

Please note that customers executing an international payment will not have visibility of personalised charges/final charges and exchange rates until the requested payment has been executed by Santander UK.

Execution of any SEPA payments for Corporate customers is not available.

File Payments

Santander have a service within open banking to allow business customers to upload BULK or BATCH domestic faster payment files to be processed via faster payment scheme.

There are a number of new File Payment Initiation end points being introduced in order to facilitate processing of faster payment file by Santander via Open Banking. They include:

• POST /file-payment-consents
• GET /file-payment-consents/{ConsentId}
• POST /file-payment-consents/{ConsentId}/file
• GET /file-payment-consents/{ConsentId}/file
• POST /file-payment-consents/{ConsentId}/file
• GET /file-payment-consents/{ConsentId}/file
• POST /file-payments

The payment file must be uploaded using 'UK.OBIE.PaymentInitiation.3.1' file format.

A file is determined as a BULK file if:

• 1) all the payments in the file have the same Debtor account and all the payments are faster payments i.e. LocalInstrument value set to ‘UK.OBIE.FPS’.
• 2) 1 debit for multiple credit payments.
• 3) the file contains only BACS payments.
• 4) it contains either all FP or all BACS. Mixed payment types are not allowed in BULK files.
  
  

A file is considered to be BATCH if:

• 1) it does not match the above criteria for being BULK.
• 2) it contains multiple payments with different Debtor accounts.
• 3) it does not contain BACS payments (these are BULK only).
• 4) it contains a mixture of payment types (e.g. CHAPS and FPS).
  
  

A BULK FP file will result in one debit against the debtor account for the multiple credits in the file. The debtor account will be debited for the full amount of the BULK FP file and any rejections of the individual credits will show as separate credit payment to the debtor account. The debit reference of the first payment in the BULK FP file will be used for the Debit and is taken from the RemittanceInformation/Unstructured data element in the payment file. The Credit reference for the individual credit payments that will be sent to the beneficiary will be taken from the RemittanceInformation/Reference data element in the payment file. Santander will validate the Bulk Payment Files to determine if the total amount in the file is within company and user payment limits, if not then Santander will reject the file on the consent journey. Santander will validate that the user is entitled to create file payments, if not then Santander will reject the file on the consent journey. Santander will validate all prepopulated debtor accounts are eligible for the customer to use for this type of payment, if not then Santander will reject the file on the consent journey.

For file payment uploads, you can process files up-to 2MB in size.

Bulk and Batch files may contain either same day payments or future dated but not a mix of both. Santander will provide details for the ‘status’ of the payment file received on request from the customer via the TPP. This is obtained using the GET /file-payments/{FilePaymentId} end point. Santander will also provide report-file details for the payment file in pacs002 format on request from the customer via the TPP. This is obtained using the GET /file-payments/{FilePaymentId}/report-file end point. Please note that the report file will currently only contain group status details for the payment file and will not contain status details of the individual payments in a payments file.

Santander supports both Bulk and Batch Payment File processing for SBBI & Corporate Business Customers. OB File Payments processing is not supported for Retail Santander customers (including Cahoot). Santander will only support payment files uploaded in the 'UK.OBIE.PaymentInitiation.3.1' format. Any other type of file format uploaded will result in the file being rejected. Santander will accept single immediate or future dated domestic payments specified in the PaymentInitiation file that will be processed via faster payment scheme. The payments will need to have the LocalInstrument value set to ‘UK.OBIE.FPS’ or 'UK.OBIE.CHAPS'. Any other payment type will result in the file being rejected.

What can you do?

1. Register an intent to setup a payment instruction.
2. Optionally confirm available funds for the specific instruction (domestic payments only)
3. Subsequently submit the payment instruction for processing
4. Optionally retrieve the status of a payment setup or submission

Who can have access to the API?

Access to the Payment Initiation Service API is limited to approved/authorised PISPs. Approval and authorisation is managed by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK (FCA, see https://www.fca.org.uk/) and other relevant competent authorities across the EU. Approved/Authorised organisations should then be enrolled to use the Open Banking Directory. By successfully accomplishing these prerequisites, a PISP will obtain the necessary digital identities and certificates which enable organisations to securely connect and communicate via the Open Banking Security Profile (OIDC) in a standard manner and to best protect all parties within the Open Banking ecosystem.