Receive and send funds to third parties

When your user has an Adyen business account, they can:

• Receive business-related payments from third parties. Their Adyen business account is credited.
• Make business-related payments by accepting incoming direct debit requests from third parties, for example, to pay for subscriptions. Their Adyen business account is debited.
• Make business-related payments by transferring funds to third-party bank accounts, for example, to pay out their suppliers. Their Adyen business account is debited.

We are working on making it possible to collect payments from third-party bank accounts through direct debit. In this case, the Adyen business account is credited.

Receiving funds

An external party (sender) can send funds to your user's Adyen business account. They must use the business account number which was returned in the API response when you created the business account.

Your users must have the receiveFromThirdParty capability allowed and enabled before they can receive funds on their Adyen business account from external parties.

When a business account receives funds from an external party, Adyen informs your server through incoming bank transfer webhooks.

Receiving direct debit requests

An external party can collect payments from your user's Adyen business account through direct debit. We currently support external direct debits in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). SEPA is the standardized infrastructure for bank-to-bank transactions within the European Union.

If your user wants to accept incoming SEPA direct debit requests on their Adyen business account, you need to:

• Inform your user of their rights:

  • They have eight weeks to dispute a SEPA direct debit transaction, without providing a reason.
  • They have thirteen months to dispute an unauthorised or incorrect SEPA direct debit transaction when they provide evidence.

• Ask your Adyen contact to enable receiving SEPA direct debits for your user.

Sending funds

Your user can send funds from their Adyen business account to third-party bank accounts. Their business account number will be shown in the bank statement of the recipient.

Your users must have the sendToThirdParty capability allowed and enabled before they can send funds from their Adyen business account to third-party accounts.

Third-party accounts are accounts not owned by your user and therefore not connected to their legal entity as a transfer instrument. Currently, Adyen only supports sending funds to third-party bank accounts. In the future, you will be able to send to third-party wallets and cards.

Before your user can send funds to third parties, reach out to your Adyen contact to:

• Add an additional role for your API credential.
• Enable transfers for the source balance account.

Get transfer routes

Prior to submitting a transfer request, we recommend that you calculate the available transfer routes. This will enable you to design a configuration that optimally aligns with your use case. Furthermore, it minimizes the risk of transfer failures by proactively identifying supported routes and highlighting any necessary parameters.

Send funds to third parties

When sending funds to third-party bank accounts, the required bank account details depend on the bank identification type. There are also additional required fields if you are doing a cross-border transfer. Additionally, you can validate the third-party bank account before sending funds to avoid failed transfers due to incorrect details.

To start a transfer, make a POST /transfers request specifying:

Parameter name	Required	Description
amount		The amount and the currency of the transfer.
balanceAccountId		The ID of the balance account from which funds are deducted.
category		Set to bank.
bankAccount		Contains details about the bank account and its owner. The accountHolder.fullName is always required. For cross-border transfers, the accountHolder.address object is also required. The accountIdentification is required. The fields that you need to send in this object are determined by the accountIdentification.type. See bank account identification types.
priority		The priority of the bank transfer, which affects the speed of the transfer and the fees you have to pay.
description		Your description for the transfer. See here for allowed characters.
reference		Your reference for the transfer. This is only used within your balance platform and not sent to the recipient. If you do not provide this in the request, Adyen generates a unique reference.
referenceForBeneficiary		Your reference for the transfer that Adyen sends to the recipient.

Select a tab below for examples.

If the transfer request is successful, you receive an HTTP 200 OK response containing an id of the transfer request. Adyen informs your server of the status of the transfer through outgoing bank transfer webhooks.

Trigger additional reviews

To better control money movement in your platform, you can trigger additional reviews for transfers. Additional reviews require a member of your team to verify a transfer before Adyen processes it.

You can trigger an additional review by including the review object in the POST /transfers request. In the object, specify the following parameter:

Parameter name	Required	Description
review.numberOfApprovalsRequired		Specifies the number of approvals required to process the transfer. Possible values: 1. Currently, it is possible to request only one additional review per transfer.
review.scaOnApproval		Possible values: — true: Specifies that you will include SCA data in the POST /transfers/approve request. — false: Specifies that you are including SCA data in the POST /transfers request. Default value: false.

The following code sample shows how to include include the review object.

If the transfer request is successful, you receive a response containing the following parameters:

Parameter name	Description
review.numberOfApprovalsCompleted	Shows the number of approvals completed for the transfer.
review.numberOfApprovalsRequired	Shows the number of approvals required to process the transfer.
review.scaOnApproval	Shows the status of the SCA process. Possible values: required, completed, notApplicable.

After triggering the review, a member of your team must approve the transfer before Adyen continues processing it.

Transfer priority

To specify how fast the funds must be sent, you can set a priority in the transfer request. A transfer with a higher priority incurs higher fees. The priorities available for bank transfers are:

• Regular: recommended for normal, low-value transactions to a recipient in the same location.
• Instant: instant way to transfer funds in Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) locations. Has higher fees than a regular payout.
• Fast: faster than regular but has higher fees. Recommended for high-priority, low-value transactions to a recipient in the same location.
• Wire: fastest way but has the highest fees. Recommended for high-priority, high-value transactions to a recipient in the same location.
• Cross-border: recommended for high-value transactions to a recipient in a different location.

  When using cross-border priority, transfer delays and potential fees may occur due to involving correspondent banks. As a result, the beneficiary may receive a reduced amount compared to the one instructed.

• Internal: transfer to an Adyen-issued business account.

Transfer cut-off times

There are specific times during a business day, called cut-off times, when Adyen stops processing bank transfers for settlement within the settlement delay. Bank transfers initiated before the cut-off time are typically processed within the specified settlement delay, while those initiated after the cut-off time will be processed the next day within the specified settlement delay.

Adhering to cut-off times can help you maintain consistency and predictability of your financial activities.

Bank account identification types and supported priorities

When transferring funds to a third-party bank account, you need to provide the accountIdentification.type in your API request. The type also determines the required bank account details.

1. To determine the accountIdentification.type value, you must have:
   • The location of the recipient bank account.
   • The currency of the funds you are transferring.
2. Find the combination in the table below and select the type to see the required fields.

This combination also identifies if you are doing a local or cross-border transfer. Cross-border transfers must be sent as wire transfers, and you must include the address of the bank account owner.

The following table show the limits for the length and the characters you can use in the descriptions based on the country/region, currency and priority.

Bank account validation

Before sending funds to a third-party bank account, you can validate this bank account to avoid failed transfers due to incorrect details.

To validate a third-party bank account, make a POST /validateBankAccountIdentification request specifying the following information, depending on the bank account identification type:

If the bank account details are valid, you'll get an HTTP 200 OK response. You can proceed with transferring funds to this account.

In case the bank account validation fails, you'll get the details in the response. Use this information to build your own logic for handling invalid bank account details.

See also