Bank Transfers provide a safe way for customers to send money over bank rails. Stripe uses Virtual Bank Account (VBAN) numbers to automate reconciliation and prevent exposing your real account details to customers. This payment method impacts your ability to receive payments, rather than your payouts.
What’s changing:
To comply with German reporting obligations regarding Virtual Bank Account Numbers (VBANs), Stripe is required to collect additional information about German merchants who wish to process bank transfer payments with Stripe. Consequently, German merchants activating the SEPA bank transfers payment method must provide the following information:
Required Information
- Tax Identifier:
- For Businesses: German Company Economic ID (UST IDNr), e.g., DE123456789
- For Individuals/Sole Proprietors: German Tax ID (Steuer-Identifikationsnummer)
- Company Registration Date
- Beneficiary Information
- Beneficial Owner Last Name
- Beneficial Owner First Name
- Beneficial Owner Address
- Beneficial Owner Tax ID (TIN) = ONLY the Individual related Steuer-Identifikationsnummer (11 Numeric number – not allowed to start with Zero)
Specific Requirements for Beneficial Owner:
- Individuals/Sole Proprietors: same as the German Tax ID requirements for Individuals/Sole Proprietors.
- Small Companies: provide beneficial ownership information that was captured as part of the onboarding process.
- Larger Companies: provide beneficial ownership information for the person that has been mentioned in the underlying company's board resolution or trade register as signing authority in the jurisdiction where services are offered and payments received. This approach is aligned with supporting information required for physical account owners, and matches the reporting requirement.
Why is additional information required for German-based merchants?
Stripe needs to collect additional information about German merchants who wish to process SEPA bank transfer payments with Stripe in order to comply with reporting obligations established by German Tax law.
What happens if the information is not provided?
From November 18, 2024, German merchants will be asked to provide required information while activating SEPA bank transfer payment method. Merchants won’t have access to SEPA bank transfers until all necessary information is provided during onboarding.
For existing users who have SEPA bank transfers enabled before November 18, 2024:
- If bank transfer payments were never processed, Stripe will disable the payment method in March and provide instructions on how to re-enable it in the future.
- Otherwise, Stripe will reach out to collect required information in Q2 2025. It is crucial that you follow the guidance to provide additional business information.
- Failure to do so by the designated deadline will result in a loss of access to the SEPA bank transfers and incoming bank transfers payments will be rejected and returned to the sender. To maintain uninterrupted service, we encourage you to respond promptly to our communications.
How to re-enable the SEPA bank transfer payment?
For Direct and Standard Connect users: To accept SEPA bank transfers, you’ll need to turn it on in your Dashboard and provide the required business information.
- If you have various payment method configurations, you'll need to activate the payment method in the relevant settings.
For Express and Custom Connect users: To allow your connected accounts to accept SEPA bank transfers, enable the payment method in the Dashboard for your connected accounts, or update your integration to enable the `sepa_bank_transfer_payments` capability for them. Additional business information is required from your connected accounts to activate the payment method.
Is there any impact on other payment methods in SEPA, such as SEPA Direct Debit?
SEPA Bank Transfers and SEPA Direct Debit are different payment methods. The new requirement only applies to SEPA Bank Transfers, and there will be no impact on SEPA Direct Debit payments or SEPA Credit Transfer payments (i.e. Issuing balance top ups).