On 21 November 2014, two new reference fields will be introduced in account transfers in Business Online: Creditor reference and End-to-end reference.
The reference fields may be used for all three transfer types: standard transfer, same-day transfer and express transfer.
Creditor reference
A creditor reference is a notification field which is comparable with the unique payment identification known from inpayment forms. The reference enables automatic reconciliation.
This means that an invoice with a bank account number and a creditor reference can replace an inpayment form. However, please note that a creditor reference cannot be used for payments made at post offices or banks or for envelope solutions.
The creditor reference consists of up to 25 characters. The first two are ”RF”, followed by two control digits and a reference of up to 21 characters. You cannot use the payment identification from an inpayment form as a creditor reference.
Example: RF18539007547034.
The creditor reference is validated (modulus 97), and if it is not correct, you will get a warning message in Business Online. If you use creditor references in files, payments with invalid references will not be rejected. Instead, the reference will be moved to the Message To Beneficiary field.
If you want to notify a beneficiary using a creditor reference, select Creditor Reference in the Remittance Information Type as shown below. When you notify beneficiaries using a creditor reference, no other message fields for the beneficiary will be available.
End-to-end reference
An end-to-end reference is a reference of up to 35 characters which can be entered in Business Online or stated in files.
The reference is intended primarily for users with numerous outgoing payments. You can now assign a unique reference to your payments, for automatic reconciliation of payments, for example, since the reference will be available in Business Online or in the reconciliation files. The reference is also forwarded to the beneficiary. This may be helpful if the beneficiary has difficulty identifying your payment and contacts you. The reference is not validated.
You find the End-To-End Reference under Further Information About The Payment (see screen above).
Mobile and Tablet Business apps
The creditor reference field will be available in our Mobile and Tablet Business apps from 7 December 2014. The end-to-end reference field will not be available in Mobile and Tablet Business.
Payments in filesIf you make payments via files, you must update your file format. You find the updated file formats
here. The updated file formats contain the two new reference fields.
Note: In the PAYMUL EDIFACT format, the end-to-end reference is located in the field which is currently used for internal technical reference.
If you use the field as an internal technical reference before 21 November, the bank will not transmit the reference to the beneficiary, but will regard it as an internal reference only. Please contact Customer Support if you want us to regard the contents of the field as an end-to-end reference.