Bacs Core Reference

Core references can be used to more acurately match Direct Debit payments with a Direct Debit Instruction (DDI or Mandate).

The way this works is as follows:

• A new Mandate is created with a unique core reference, for example “MA10867326”.
• All payments that are created for the Mandate contain the core reference, plus a payment reference, for example “MA108673260001” for the first payment, “MA108673260002” for the second payment, and so on.

• A core reference must be a minimum of 6 characters long, and can be up to 18 characters in length. For SmarterPay Cloud this is set to a maximum of 14 to allow for up to 4 characters for related payment references.
• Although any of the allowed Bacs characters may be included in the core reference (A-Z, 0-9, “/”, “-”, “.”, “&”, “ ”), only upper case alpha and numeric characters will be considered in checking for the minimum length.
• The first character in the reference must be an alpha or numeric character (A-Z, 0-9).
• It must not consist of all the same characters, for example “000000”.
• Use of “DDIC” in the first four characters is prohibited.
• The core reference must be lodged with the paying banks exactly as it appears on a signed DD.
• It must be unique for the sort code, account number and SUN. It must not be possible to match the core reference wholly or in part to an existing core reference for the same sort code, account number and SUN.