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Conventions

Character set​

bLink supports the UTF-8 character set. The exact list of permitted characters and a conversion table can be found in the Swiss Implementation Guidelines for Customer-Bank Messages Credit Transfer (Payment Transactions - section 2.4.1). If you send characters that are not specified, the message is automatically rejected.

Character set for references​

For specific references, only characters from the SWIFT character set are permitted, including:

  • Message Identification
  • Payment Information Identification
  • Instruction Identification
  • End-to-End Identification
note

These references must not begin with space or "/", not end with "/" and not contain "//".

Date and time formats​

All dates and timestamps in the JSON payloads are represented according to the ISO-8601 format following the standards presented as follows:

  • Date: yyyy-MM-dd
  • Date-time: yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss+HH:mm
  • Date-time (only UTC): yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssZ

All date-time fields must use local time with offset to UTC. An example is 2017-04-05T10:43:07+02:00, which indicates a 2-hour offset to UTC. If the date-time field does not have offset, meaning that it is considering UTC time, it is represented either with a Z or with +00:00, e.g., 2017-04-05T10:43:00+00:00 or 2017-04-05T10:43:00Z.

note

Currently, date-time fields are only used for the health check and directory endpoints. For all other definitions, please use only the date.

Customer reference​

A customer reference can also be sent in the Remittance Information in structured or unstructured form. Remittance Information is all information about credit transfer that the sender requests its bank to transmit to the beneficiary in order to facilitate reconciliation process. More information can be found in the Swiss Implementation Guidelines for Customer-Bank Messages Credit Transfer (Payment Transactions - section 2.4.4.2).

Using the Swiss QR reference​

For payments with structured reference, the two following reference types are used:

  • QR-Reference: The structure of the QR reference corresponds to that of the ISR reference (26 numerical characters followed by a Modulo 10 recursive check digits) and can be used by the biller as a structured reference.
  • Creditor Reference: The ISO Creditor Reference (ISO 11649) enables creditors to make automatic comparisons between their bills and the incoming payments. This reference must not be changed. It must include value "RF" in position 1-2 and a correct test character in position 3-4, and can include up to a maximum of 25 characters.

End-to-End Identification​

End-to-End Identification is used for the unique identification of a transaction and is assigned by the debtor. The End-to-End Identification, such as the order number, is passed unchanged along the whole processing chain.

Payment types​

The payment types defined in the Swiss Business Rules [9] are considered for the bLink API. For the messages regarding the payment initiation submission and the request of account transactions, the payment types are categorized as: ISR payments, IBAN payments, QR-Bill payments, and other payments. .

IBAN payments​

Collection for IBAN payments with following characteristics:

  • Contains a valid Swiss creditor and Swiss debtor IBAN (CH or LI), currency CHF or EUR (PT3).
  • Contains a valid Swiss creditor and Swiss debtor IBAN (CH or LI), currency is not CHF or EUR (PT4).
  • Contains a valid SEPA-country creditor and Swiss debtor IBAN (CH or LI), currency is EUR (PT5)
  • Contains a foreign non SEPA-country creditor and Swiss debtor IBAN (CH or LI), contains a creditor agent, all currencies allowed (PT6).

QR-Bill payments:​

Collection for QR-Bill payments that contains a valid Swiss debtor IBAN (CH or LI) an Ultimate Debtor and a QR-Reference. Only CHF and EUR allowed as currencies.

The term “QR-bill” is means a bill with a payment part and receipt integrated on the form or a bill with a separately enclosed payment part and receipt.

For payments with a structured QR reference, the QR-IBAN must be used to indicate the account to be credited. You can get all the details about the Swiss Implementation Guidelines for the QR-bill here.

Other payments​

Collection for all other payments that contain a domestic or foreign creditor bank account, Swiss debtor IBAN (CH or LI), contains a creditor agent, all currencies allowed.

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