Single Euro Payments Area processing on one payment platform.
BazPay processes payments across the Single Euro Payments Area — SEPA settlement, SEPA Direct Debit and SEPA — alongside card acceptance, wallets and regional local payment methods on one direct regional acquiring contract. Cascade retries recover recoverable card declines without adding shopper friction.
Built for merchants across the EU, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand: e-commerce sellers, subscription software firms and professional-services businesses. One event stream across every rail, one dashboard, one EUR settlement balance.
Why one platform beats stitched bank-rail and card vendors
Handling payments processing across SEPA and cards on separate vendors multiplies the reconciliation load and hides retention data across portals. Four properties keep the operational surface uniform.
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One platform for SEPA and card processing
Single Euro Payments Area transfers, card acquiring, wallets and local payment methods share the same charge object and the same signed event stream. Your ledger reconciles against one schema — bank-rail and card lines converge cleanly.
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Cascading retries where a decline earns it
Card declines are read by reason code and re-attempted on a second connection or with a network-token refresh where the rule permits. Cascade retries recover recoverable losses without adding shopper friction.
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EUR-first settlement, multi-currency presentment
Authorise in the shopper's preferred currency across cards and APMs; settle in EUR into your local settlement account. Named settlement currencies are available for approved corridors.
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Real-time visibility across every rail
Approval, decline, refund, dispute and payout events flow through one signed webhook stream — SEPA and card processing feed the same dashboard rather than sitting in separate vendor portals.
The rails on the platform
Four rail families run through one connection. Turn any of them on from the dashboard — SEPA settlement, SEPA, cards + wallets, or local payment methods.
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SEPA
SEPA Credit Transfer and Direct Debit
Registered vouchers issued at checkout and paid at any bank, lottery agent or inside a banking app, plus recurring pulls under a SEPA Direct Debit mandate. Refunds return to the original settlement account, mandates are stored gateway-side and portable, and every payout carries a signed event.
- SCT
- SEPA Instant
- BACS Direct Debit
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SEPA Instant
SEPA Instant for instant settlement
Where the payer would rather pay now than print a voucher, SEPA Instant clears the same order in seconds. SEPA stays available as the fallback for shoppers without a bank app — no separate integration.
- Sub-10 seconds
- Fallback SEPA
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Cards + LPM
Cards and local payment methods
Card acceptance runs on BazPay's own regional acquiring licence alongside the SEPA rails. Local payment methods (LPM) sit behind the same API call, so a checkout offers cards, wallets and SEPA Instant on one integration.
- Visa
- Mastercard
- SEPA Instant
- Bancontact
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Payouts
Merchant payouts on European rails
Payouts to your local settlement account settle per scheme cycle. SEPA Instant and SCT are used for approved corridors; SWIFT and push-to-card options exist for specific routes.
- SEPA Instant
- SCT
- Push-to-card
Full SEPA Instant and instant-transfer depth. Card and APM detail on card and APM processing. Outbound settlement mechanics on payouts. Single-method example built on these rails: iDEAL payments. Getting-started guide: accept online payments.
How a payment moves through the platform end to end
Six stages describe the path from checkout to settled dollar. The cascade stage is where recoverable declines get a second chance without a shopper prompt.
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Collect
Hosted fields, a hosted checkout page or a bank-rail redirect capture the payment inside our PCI or open-banking flow — never on your servers.
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Score
Device, velocity and geography signals score the order inline. Clean orders skip the extra step; risky orders park in the review queue.
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Authorise
Card charges post to the acquirer with the authentication result bound; bank-rail charges post with the voucher or SEPA Instant reference attached.
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Cascade
On a recoverable card decline, the platform retries against a second connection or refreshes a network token — cascading of payments recovers losses without shopper friction.
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Confirm
The response returns a canonical charge object. Signed webhooks confirm the outcome asynchronously across every rail with one HMAC scheme.
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Settle
Funds reconcile per scheme cycle for cards, per SEPA and SEPA Instant cycle for bank rails. Every settlement line carries interchange++ detail for reconciliation.
SEPA + card cascade on one platform vs stitched rails
Buying SEPA processing from a bank and card processing from an acquirer keeps every vendor focused on one thing — and buries retention, reconciliation and cascade logic under two portals. The comparison below shows where the unified stack earns its keep.
| Dimension | BazPay (unified) | Stitched vendors |
|---|---|---|
| Bank rail + card contract | One BazPay contract covers both | Separate bank + acquirer relationships |
| Event stream | One signed envelope across every rail | Separate portals per rail |
| Cascade retries | Reason-code-aware retry across connections | Manual retry or none |
| Local payment methods | Same charge object as cards | Per-vendor SDK per LPM |
| Settlement | EUR to your nominated IBAN, per cycle | Aggregated across vendors |
| Reporting | Interchange++ line detail across rails | Blended-rate summaries |
Rate structure on the pricing page. Routing logic behind the cascade lives on smart routing.
Features engineered into the payments-processing platform
Every capability below ships on the standard integration. Turn features on with a request flag or a dashboard toggle — no premium tier gates the cascade, SEPA or interchange++ reporting.
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SEPA settlement
Registered vouchers generated at checkout with barcode, due date and payer details, reconciled automatically the moment they are paid.
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SEPA Direct Debit
Inbound pulls with gateway-side mandate storage. Portable mandates carry between rails without asking shoppers to re-authorise.
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SEPA Instant instant
Sub-10-second settlement for shoppers who pay from a bank app; SEPA stays on the same checkout for everyone else.
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Card acquiring cascade
Reason-code-aware retry across card connections. Cascade payments recover recoverable declines without adding a shopper prompt.
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Local payment methods
SEPA Instant, Bancontact, BLIK, EPS and Trustly sit behind the same charge object as cards — a dashboard toggle per market.
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3-D Secure 2.2
Authentication with automatic exemption logic — TRA, low-value, trusted-beneficiary, MIT — so most digital payments processing stays frictionless.
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Signed webhooks
HMAC-signed, replay-protected events per rail on one signature scheme — card, wallet, LPM and bank rails all share the same handler.
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Interchange++ reporting
Interchange, scheme fees and gateway margin split per settled charge; SEPA and SEPA Instant lines break out per rail for finance reconciliation.
One REST call, whichever rail the payment ends up on
The payment_method field picks the rail. Card and SEPA Direct Debit share
the same request shape and the same idempotency contract; the response returns a
canonical charge object regardless of the rail selected.
POST /v1/charges
Idempotency-Key: 8f1c-2b3a-9e4d
{
"amount": 12900,
"currency": "EUR",
"payment_method": "SEPA_debit",
"customer": "cus_5F9k",
"mandate": "mnd_02H9",
"metadata": { "invoice_id": "INV-10842" }
}The response returns the charge object with the mandate reference bound to the payment and the expected settlement date. Read the schema in the API reference.
Where merchants run SEPA + card processing together
The four merchant profiles below already rely on BazPay to process payments across SEPA, cards and local payment methods on one contract. The reporting emphasis differs per business type.
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Multi-country e-commerce
DTC storefronts running across our markets with card, wallet and LPM acceptance under one MID, plus SEPA Instant payouts to a single local settlement account.
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Subscription software
SaaS billing with SEPA Direct Debit for enterprise plans and card-on-file renewals for self-serve tiers — both under the same subscription reference.
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Professional services
B2B invoicing where higher-ticket buyers prefer SEPA settlement over card, with fallback card acceptance on the same hosted page.
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Digital publishers
Membership and paywall businesses handling small-ticket card payments alongside SEPA-backed corporate subscriptions.
Out of scope for BazPay: adult, gambling, CBD, nutraceutical, forex, CFD, crypto-exchange, debt-collection and MLM. BazPay is not a merchant of record and not a marketplace of third-party PSPs.
Security and compliance across every rail
Card handling runs inside a PCI DSS Level 1 environment assessed each year. Hosted fields and gateway-side vaulting keep your annual return at merchant SAQ A. SEPA processing adheres to the EPC SEPA rulebooks (Credit Transfer, Direct Debit, Instant Credit Transfer). Authentication runs on every card charge with 3-D Secure 2.2 and automatic exemption logic.
- PCI DSS Level 1
- Annual assessment on the acquiring and gateway environment
- Merchant SAQ A
- Hosted fields and gateway vault keep card data out of your stack
- Authentication
- 3-D Secure 2.2 with automatic exemption logic on every card charge
- GDPR
- In-region data residency; DPA on request
- SEPA scheme rulebooks
- Adherence to the SEPA Instant, Faster Payments and BACS Direct Debit scheme rulebooks
Questions merchants ask about processing payments across SEPA
What is the Single Euro Payments Area, and where does BazPay fit?
The Single Euro Payments Area is the region-wide initiative that makes cross-border dollar transfers behave like domestic ones. It defines the SEPA settlement, SEPA Direct Debit and SEPA same-day clearing schemes. BazPay is a direct regional acquirer and payment gateway that processes payments across these SEPA rails alongside card, wallet and regional local payment method processing on the same platform.
How does BazPay handle cascading payments and cascade retries?
Cascading of payments here means reason-code-aware retry logic on card declines. When a soft decline lands, the platform reads the reason code and either retries against a second connection, refreshes a network token or sends the shopper an appropriate next-action prompt. Cascade retries recover recoverable losses without adding shopper friction; the routing decisions are logged for you to inspect in real-time analytics.
Are LPM payments (local payment methods) part of the Single Euro Payments Area?
Not strictly — LPM payments run on scheme rails specific to each country (for example SEPA Instant in the euro area, Bancontact in the United Kingdom, BLIK in Australia). SEPA is the underlying bank-transfer layer. BazPay processes LPM payments alongside SEPA on the same platform, and reconciles both into the same EUR settlement balance, so the operational surface stays uniform even though the underlying networks differ.
Does BazPay offer DCC (Dynamic Currency Conversion) at checkout?
DCC in payments is a shopper-facing conversion service that quotes a cross-borderR shopper the transaction amount in their home currency at the point of sale. Multi-currency presentment across card and APM is supported on BazPay charges; a dedicated shopper-side DCC product is not part of the standard scope. If your business model depends on presenting DCC quotes at checkout, discuss it with sales during boarding.
How fast are SEPA payments in practice?
Where both banks are participants in the SEPA same-day clearing scheme, funds are typically credited within seconds of authorisation. Where a bank in the flow is not enrolled, the payment falls back to standard SEPA on the same or next business day. BazPay uses SEPA automatically on approved corridors — no toggle to enable it per payment.
How does electronic payments processing on SEPA rails interact with our card reconciliation?
SEPA and card settlements land in the same EUR balance and are exported through the same interchange++ statement, keyed by rail. Refunds on SEPA return to the original settlement account; refunds on cards return to the original PAN. Both fire signed webhooks so your ledger updates on the same signature scheme.
Which merchant profiles run on this stack for online payments processing?
Merchants across the EU, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand: e-commerce sellers, subscription software firms, professional-services businesses and digital publishers. BazPay does not board adult, gambling, CBD, nutraceutical, forex, CFD, crypto-exchange, debt-collection or MLM merchants, and does not act as a merchant of record or a marketplace of third-party PSPs.
How do payments and subscriptions work together across SEPA and cards?
The subscription reference is a first-class field on the charge object. Renewals can prefer card-on-file (with MIT exemptions and network-token refresh) or SEPA Direct Debit (with a stored mandate). Dunning-aware retries handle soft declines on either rail, and the reporting surface tracks retention against the same subscription regardless of which method paid the last cycle.
Consolidate SEPA and card processing on one platform
Share your business model, current SEPA and card volumes and the corridor mix you need. A named engineer will confirm boarding fit and map the migration inside one working day. See also integrations, pricing and the deeper SEPA Instant and instant-transfer reference.