ABBL
Association des Banques et Banquiers, Luxembourg
The Luxembourg Bankers' Association
Luxemburger Bankenvereinigung
The SEPA Creditor Identifier (CI) was created in the SEPA Direct debit scheme to allow debtors as well as debtor banks to check, for example, the existence of a mandate at the presentation of a collection by the creditor. This action requires a unique identification of creditors, meaning that each CI can only refer to one specific creditor. In Luxembourg, the Luxembourg Bankers’ Association (ABBL) was mandated by banks to issue the SEPA Creditor Identifier in consultation with the creditor’s bank. This service has been made available from 1 July 2010.
Structure of the SEPA Creditor-ID in Luxembourg
Example: LU27ZZZ0000000000123456789
Creditor-ID : 26 alphanumerical characters
Position 1 and 2 Country Code: "LU" (ISO 3166)
Position 3 and 4 Check Digit: 2n (ISO 7064)
Position 5 to 7 Business Code: 3AN ; "ZZZ" (default)
Position 8 Fixed Value: ‘’0’’
Position 9 to 26 National Identifier: 18AN
How do I get a SEPA Creditor-ID?
- The bank downloads the application form from the ABBL website: Application Form
- The bank completes the form with all mandatory fields.
- The bank sends the application form to the email address: cred-id@abbl.lu
- The ABBL verifies the form (have all the required fields been completed? is the BIC code valid?)
- The ABBL verifies that the creditor has not already received a creditor identifier in Luxembourg.
- The ABBL generates the SEPA Creditor ID and verifies its uniqueness.
- In case there is a problem, the ABBL gets in touch with the bank in order to solve the issue.
- The ABBL sends back the form completed with the SEPA Creditor-ID to the creditor bank.
Who is authorised to ask for a SEPA Creditor-ID ?
Only creditor banks located in Luxembourg are authorised to ask the ABBL for a SEPA Creditor-ID.
Has the creditor to be located in Luxembourg?
No. The creditor may be located anywhere in a SEPA country.
Is it possible to re-use an existing identifier?
Yes. It’s possible to re-use 18 characters of an existing identifier, which will be encapsulated in the SEPA Creditor-ID.
If the existing identifier is less than 18 characters, then the identifier is left padded with “0” up to 18 characters.
What is the other possibility to get an identifier?
If there is no reuse of any existing identifier, then an incremental SEPA Creditor-ID is generated, starting from “000000000000000001” to “999999999999999999”.
Is there any verification on data sent by banks?
The ABBL doesn’t make any verification on the creditor's data sent by a bank. Only the BIC8 of the creditor bank is verified through the SWIFT website.
Glossary
