π‘ Depending on your business model, you may find it useful to offer your customers the option of paying or investing by bank transfer, which has no limit on the amount and allows you to protect yourself against the risk of card chargebacks.
Bank transfers
π Main statuses of a bank transfer
π Make sure transfers are credited quickly
π Unidentified and uncredited transfers
π Ibanisation of payment accounts
How it works
Once payment (a Money-In) by bank transfer is enabled, we provide you with an IBAN (shared by all our partners, as well as a reconciliation code, usually the name of your platform followed by the external ID of the beneficiary payment account, in the form NAME-IDEXT). You will need to enter it on your website or app at the payment phase and this will allow us to credit the received transfer to the correct payment account upon receipt.
Note
Some banks do not recognise the dash "-" in the matching code, in this case, a space between ENVIRONMENTNAME and EXTID is sufficient.
The information your customers should provide when submitting a transfer request via their bank's website or app is listed below:
- Beneficiary name: Lemonway or Lemonway + Environment name
- Beneficiary IBAN: the IBAN that we provide you with
- BIC code of the Beneficiary's Bank (if requested): the BIC code that we provide you with
- Description: the reconciliation code following the format that we have provided (maximum 35 characters): ENVIRONMENTNAME-EXTID
Receiving a wire transfer and crediting it to the beneficiary's payment account results in the automatic creation of a transaction in your system environment with a Completed status (Type = Incoming/Method = Transfer/Status = Completed), and in fees being charged by Lemonway πLearn more about fees here
The most frequent causes of delayed credits or inability for Lemonway to credit the incoming wire transfer to the beneficiary payment account are listed below:
- Beneficiary payment account in KYC status (e.g. KYC1/amount limits exceeded) prevent us from crediting the transfer received to the beneficiary payment account
- Beneficiary payment account/external ID that does not exist in your system
- The name of your system appears in the transfer description, but your customer does not specify the external ID of the beneficiary payment account
- There is no reference to the name of your system/external ID of the beneficiary payment account, preventing us from linking the bank transfer received to your platform
In the 3 first cases, youβll receive a pending list every Tuesday and Thursday with the pending wires.
Main statuses of a bank transfer
Bank transfers can have multiple statuses:
β Completed: the transaction was successful and the transaction amount is credited to the target payment account, increasing the account balance
π« Error: the transaction is incomplete and failed to be credited to the target payment account. This status indicates that the transfer has been cancelled by Lemonway (e.g., incorrect beneficiary information provided by the bank) or on your instructions (chargeable/conditional service).
Make sure transfers are credited quickly
Lemonway automatically checks the identity of the sender of an incoming wire transfer into your system against the identity of the holder of the destination payment account (excluding ecommerce, marketplace, and factoring type activities for the debtor - no verification is required).
In order for an incoming wire transfer to be credited automatically to the destination payment account on D+1 (D = banking business day of receipt by Lemonway), it is essential that:
- The transfer originates from a bank account held by the holder of the beneficiary payment account (except in the event of joint bank accounts - details below).
- The transfer text contains the reconciliation code (ENVIRONMENTNAME-EXTID).
Special cases
Joint accounts
A transfer originating from the joint bank account of A and B may be credited to the payment account of A, the payment account of B, or the joint payment account of A and B.
As some banks only display the name of one or other of the account holders in transfers issued from a joint account, we recommend that you advise your users to indicate the ENVIRONMENTNAME-EXTID-JOINT reconciliation code in this particular case, so that we do not need to ask you for additional documentation (proof of transfer and bank details of the joint account).
If we only have one name which does not match the walletβs name, weβll need a proof of transfer in any case, even with JOINT written in the description.
Note
Sometimes the bank issuing the transfer does not send us information about the account holder. Thatβs why we may ask you for proof of transfer, specifying the names of the two account holders, the date and the amount (this information must match the corresponding transfer). π Learn more in our KYC article
Transfers issued by a company
A transfer originating from a company bank account can only be credited to a payment account held by a legal person. For verification purposes, you may be asked for the issuing bank account number to ensure that it is a corporate account.
Transfers originating from a sender without a payment account
In this particular case, there are two solutions:
- If the payment account is not yet KYC2 and has never received any payment funds: rename the account, and provide the corresponding necessary KYC documents
- Create a new payment account in the name of the sender of the transfer and provide the external ID of the payment account to be credited.
If after 3 months we have not had any contact regarding a pending transfer, it will be returned to the sender.
Unidentified and uncredited transfers
In the case of a joint account or a transfer issued by a company, we will send you a list of received and unmatched bank transfers by email (twice a week), together with the action/decision expected from you in order for us to be able to credit the funds correctly. You have the option to receive a pending list (transfers waiting to be credited) every day. π Get in touch with our support team for more information
π‘ Returned transfers are charged in accordance with the terms of your contract. If bank transfers are not included in the payment methods in your contract and you would like to activate them, π please contact us.
Refund a bank transfer
If the transfer has been credited to the payment account
You will need to issue an outgoing transfer. π Learn more how to issue a transfer in our dedicated article
The transfer has not yet been credited to a payment account
You can request a return of funds which we need to process.
Note
This is an exceptional procedure for which we can ask the client why they want to refund the wire. There is no refund on a bank transfer. However, in some case, we sent back the wire to the issuer.
π‘ Get in touch with us π here with the sender's bank details to speed up the procedure.
Set up a dedicated IBAN
Depending on the volume of your incoming wire transfers, it may be worth considering a dedicated IBAN/bank account with Lemonway.
A dedicated IBAN (a bank account in the name of Lemonway but whose details are not shared with other partners and are known only by you) allows you to:
- Maximize the amount credited: incoming bank transfers from your customers that do not include your platform name (and which we would thus be unable to identify in accounts shared by all our partners) are never "lost" and returned to the originators.
- Improve lead times for crediting: bank transfers received into dedicated bank accounts are treated as a priority. You are notified twice a week of unmatched/pending transfers, allowing you to take appropriate action (e.g. incorrect KYC status of the beneficiary payment account) promptly for faster crediting to the payment account.
π‘ If you would like to set up a dedicated IBAN, get in touch π with us
Ibanisation of payment accounts
We offer the option of linking an IBAN to a payment account. This is called a virtual IBAN, and it is still held by Lemonway. A virtual IBAN can only be linked to one payment account. Once you have generated this IBAN and sent it to your customer, he/she will be able to make a transfer using these bank details and on receipt, the transfer will be credited to the payment account automatically, subject to normal banking processing times.
Ibanisation allows you to:
- Avoid pending transfers, since the transfer has been sent to a virtual IBAN linked to a payment account (which will always be the payment account to which the transfer will be credited)
- Streamline your transfer receipt process and, therefore, your business
- Limit discussions about transfers to be credited
- No longer have to provide your customers with your external identifier
- Benefit from faster reconciliation
π‘ You can provide some of your customers with virtual IBANs. Credits using a bank reconciliation code are still possible. The two processes are compatible.