Reversals

Send a settled SEPA direct debit back with pain.007 in Rust: reversal versus refund versus reject, partial reversals and the mandatory OrgnlTxRef.

A reversal is you, the creditor, undoing a collection that already settled. It is your own correction, and it is not the same thing as the two debtor-side events people often confuse it with:

A reversal concerns a settled collection. A recall — camt.055 — asks the bank to cancel a submitted payment. Availability, deadlines and fees depend on the bank and scheme. An ARDT refusal reports an existing return, not permission to send another one.

Only pain.007.001.09 is defined for SEPA, so there is no version to choose.

Reversing what you sent🔗

A reversal has to restate the collection it undoes — the mandate, the creditor identifier, the scheme, the sequence type, the dates and both parties. Rather than retyping a dozen fields and risking a mismatch, hand it the objects you already built:

use sepa::{
    DirectDebitEntry, DirectDebitGroup, IsoDate, Pain007Builder, ReversalEntry,
    ReversalGroup, ReversalReason, validate_creditor_id, validate_iban,
};

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let creditor = validate_iban("DE89370400440532013000")?;
    let debtor = validate_iban("NL91ABNA0417164300")?;
    let ci = validate_creditor_id("DE98ZZZ09999999999")?;

    // The collection that went out last week.
    let group = DirectDebitGroup::new("Stadtwerke GmbH", &creditor, &ci, IsoDate::new(2026, 7, 20)?);
    let entry = DirectDebitEntry::new(
        "MND-42",
        "2024-06-01".parse()?,
        "Max Mustermann",
        debtor,
        7_500,
        "E2E-1",
    );

    let xml = Pain007Builder::new("Stadtwerke GmbH", "DD-2026-07-001", "RVSL-2026-07-001")
        .add_group(
            ReversalGroup::new("DD-2026-07-001")
                .add_entry(ReversalEntry::reverse(&group, &entry, ReversalReason::Ms02)),
        )
        .build()?;

    assert!(xml.contains("<RvsdInstdAmt Ccy=\"EUR\">75.00</RvsdInstdAmt>"));
    assert!(xml.contains("<MndtId>MND-42</MndtId>"));
    Ok(())
}

Pain007Builder::new takes the MsgId of the original message, and ReversalGroup::new the PmtInfId of the group being reversed out of. For a single-group collection that identifier is the message’s own MsgId.

Partial reversals🔗

Give back less than you took by setting the reversed amount. Reversing more than was collected is rejected — that would credit the debtor money you never took.

use sepa::{OriginalCollection, ReversalEntry, ReversalReason};

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let entry = ReversalEntry::new(
        "E2E-1",
        7_500, // what was collected
        ReversalReason::Ms02,
        OriginalCollection::new("MND-42", "2024-06-01".parse()?),
    )
    .reversed_amount(2_500); // what goes back

    assert_eq!(entry.effective_amount_ct(), 2_500);
    Ok(())
}

Why the original reference is required🔗

ISO says a reversal may refer to the original “by means of references only or by means of references and a set of elements from the original instruction” — so in plain ISO, OrgnlTxRef is optional.

The German validation subset makes it mandatory, along with the mandate reference and signature date inside it. A references-only reversal is therefore not something a German bank accepts, and OriginalCollection is a required argument here rather than an Option you could forget.

Its fields are set in pairs for the same reason: the subset makes SvcLvl/LclInstrm/SeqTp all mandatory once payment-type information is present, and a party needs both a name and an account. Building them together means a half-filled block cannot be expressed.

use sepa::{DirectDebitScheme, OriginalCollection, SequenceType, validate_iban};

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let debtor = validate_iban("NL91ABNA0417164300")?;

    let original = OriginalCollection::new("MND-42", "2024-06-01".parse()?)
        .collection_date("2026-07-20".parse()?)
        .payment_type(DirectDebitScheme::Core, SequenceType::Frst)
        .debtor("Max Mustermann", debtor);

    assert_eq!(original.mandate_ref(), "MND-42");
    Ok(())
}

Reasons🔗

MS02 — no reason given by the customer — is the ordinary choice for “collected in error”, and is what the German banking industry’s own example uses. AM05 covers a duplicate, FRAD a fraudulent original, TECH a technical fault. Unrecognised codes are carried through rather than rejected, because ISO revises the list quarterly.

See also🔗

• Recalls — requesting cancellation of a submitted payment
• Direct debits — the collection this undoes

Full API reference on docs.rs. Found a mistake? Open an issue.