How To Accept Donations via SEPA Direct Debit

The Donorbox team is excited to announce a fantastic new feature for all Europe based organizations. Our donation forms now accept SEPA Direct Debit payments! SEPA payments are efficient, cross-border bank transfers for Europe. In other words, your European supporters can now make one-time donations or recurring in euros through bank transfers, instead of using credit cards or PayPal.

SEPA Direct Debit is Europe’s leading direct debit payment method. It provides a standard to easily process euro bank payments. Essentially, all euro payments will be considered domestic, no matter where your organization or your donor is located.

This new feature is beneficial for a number of reasons! SEPA offers you the same ease when receiving bank account donations from across Europe as within your organization’s country. It’s a practical alternative to credit cards—especially for your donors in Eurozone countries with markets of low card use, where paying by bank account is the preferred method. Unlike other types of international payments, it has no transaction amount limit (so long as the donation doesn’t reach 1 billion euros).

SEPA Direct Debit also has lower processing fees compared to credit cards. This is particularly helpful for large donations, as card fees are typically much more expensive.

The SEPA fees are as listed:

Since SEPA payments are in euro only, your donor must have a EUR-denominated bank account and IBAN. On your donation form, they must also select Euro as the donation currency. The SEPA option will only appear if the currency is in euro.

This process requires your donor to accept a debit authorization, called a mandate, allowing Donorbox to debit their bank account. When your donor confirms their donation, they are accepting the mandate.

SEPA Direct Debit is provided by Stripe. You must have a European Stripe account in order to take advantage of this payment method. A few examples of other successful companies and organizations currently using the SEPA standard include Amazon Web Services, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Zenit News Agency.

Accepting SEPA Payments

Step 1

This new feature is turned off by default, so in order to use it, you must go to your Donorbox account settings and click on the “Payment Methods” menu item on the left.

On the Payment Methods page, you will see the “Accept SEPA Payments” toggle option. For this option to appear, you must connect with Stripe first. Before you can accept SEPA payments, you must first activate SEPA in your Stripe account. In your Stripe payment settings, click the “Activate” button next to “SEPA Direct Debit”. Your Stripe account also must have regularly processed card payments for 30 days.

Step 2

With SEPA payments enabled, a new “SEPA DEBIT” tab will now appear at the top of your donation form’s payment page. This payment option will appear regardless of whether the donor is making a one-time or recurring donation.

Step 3

Once your donor has entered their IBAN account number and is ready to donate, all they have to do is read and agree with the mandate. To reiterate—by confirming the donation, your donor is authorizing Donorbox and Stripe to collect the funds from their bank account.

Once they’ve confirmed the donation, the transfer will be initiated and your donation will begin processing! It’s that easy. Once the donation is finalized, your donor will receive a confirmation email for debiting their bank account before they receive their donation receipt email.

Please note that while the payment will take about a day on average to clear, the process can take up to 14 days. If your donor wishes to have their donation refunded, they are entitled under the SEPA standard to request a refund from their bank within 8 weeks of being debited.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to contact us on our support ticket page.