System Error Correction (SEC)
An EFT SEC is a request from the originating bank to reverse a credit or debit payment that was previously submitted and has already been actioned at the homing bank.
The scenarios below describe transaction flows that occur between you, the homing bank, and Electrum, when receiving an inbound SEC request file from an originating bank (via BankservAfrica).
Successful System Error Correction Request
PASA (Payments Association of South Africa) notifies the homing bank that SEC will be initiated at another bank to correct a system error.
Electrum receives an EFT data file containing a number of transactions to be processed. These are essentially previously applied transactions that need to be reversed/returned.
Electrum parses the file, separating it into a number of transactions that are either stored in the database (credits and debits) or processed immediately (for credits only) after matching the transactions to the original instructions.
Once the transactions are ready to be sent (allowed processing window is reached), Electrum sends an
inboundPaymentReturnmessage to theinbound/payment-returnendpoint (PaymentReturn schema) for each transaction in the file. The message contains theSYSTEM_ERROR_CORRECTION_REQUESTreason for the return in thepaymentScheme.schemeData.returnTypefield.
PaymentReturn Schema
Holds a point-to-point unique message identification string as well as a message's creation date time.
The date and time at which the message was created, in senders local timezone or UTC. The date must be formatted as defined by date-time in RFC3339
A reference used to unambiguously identify the message between the sending and receiving party. Take note that this uniquely identifies a single message in a potentially multi-message exchange to complete a payment.
A list of key-value pairs to support adding any supplementary/additional data to an Electrum Regulated Payments API message.
Holds a series of identifiers to identify the transaction or an individual message that is part of a transaction.
Unique identification, as assigned by the initiating party, to unambiguously identify the transaction. This identification is passed on, unchanged, throughout the entire end-to-end chain. Note: this is distinct from the UETR.
Unique identification, as assigned by an instructing party for an instructed party, to unambiguously identify the instruction. The instruction identification is a point to point reference that can be used between the instructing party and the instructed party to refer to the individual instruction. It can be included in several messages related to the instruction.
Unique identification, as assigned by the first instructing agent, to unambiguously identify the transaction that is passed on, unchanged, throughout the entire interbank chain. Usage: The transaction identification can be used for reconciliation, tracking or to link tasks relating to the transaction on the interbank level. Usage: The instructing agent has to make sure that the transaction identification is unique for a pre-agreed period.
Universally unique identifier to provide an end-to-end reference of a payment transaction. This identifier remains the same for all messages related to the same transaction.
This model is the basic representation of a Party. It is expanded on depending on whether the party is a person or an organisation.
A code to identify a country, a dependency, or another area of particular geopolitical interest, on the basis of country names obtained from the United Nations (ISO 3166, Alpha-2 code).
The identification of a party, either a person or an organisation.
The name by which this party is commonly known in day to day use. For example, a shortening of their legal name or a nickname that they commonly use. This is "non-official". However, it is acceptable for this field to be set to the same as legalName.
The legal name by which this party is known (the "FICA" name). This is the full name of the party as found on country-issued documentation (national identity, company registration documentation etc).
Representation of an account for payment purposes. Note that at least one of identification or proxy is expected to be present.
A code allocated to a financial or non-financial institution by the ISO 9362 Registration Authority as described in ISO 9362 Banking - Banking telecommunication messages - Business identifier code (BIC)
An organisation identified by a code allocated to a party as described in ISO 17442 Financial Services - Legal Entity Identifier (LEI).
Name by which an institution is known and which is usually used to identify that institution
A unique identifier assigned to a company or organisation by a duly appointed authority within a country.
Deprecated. Please use the preferred clearingSystemMemberId.memberId instead. Identification of a member of a clearing system.
This model is the basic representation of a Party. It is expanded on depending on whether the party is a person or an organisation.
A code to identify a country, a dependency, or another area of particular geopolitical interest, on the basis of country names obtained from the United Nations (ISO 3166, Alpha-2 code).
The identification of a party, either a person or an organisation.
The name by which this party is commonly known in day to day use. For example, a shortening of their legal name or a nickname that they commonly use. This is "non-official". However, it is acceptable for this field to be set to the same as legalName.
The legal name by which this party is known (the "FICA" name). This is the full name of the party as found on country-issued documentation (national identity, company registration documentation etc).
Representation of an account for payment purposes. Note that at least one of identification or proxy is expected to be present.
A code allocated to a financial or non-financial institution by the ISO 9362 Registration Authority as described in ISO 9362 Banking - Banking telecommunication messages - Business identifier code (BIC)
An organisation identified by a code allocated to a party as described in ISO 17442 Financial Services - Legal Entity Identifier (LEI).
Name by which an institution is known and which is usually used to identify that institution
A unique identifier assigned to a company or organisation by a duly appointed authority within a country.
Deprecated. Please use the preferred clearingSystemMemberId.memberId instead. Identification of a member of a clearing system.
Holds a point-to-point unique message identification string as well as a message's creation date time.
Contains key elements related to the original transaction that is being referred to.
Designates which scheme a payment return is associated with and describes scheme-specific information for the return.
Identifies the scheme used for the payment
ZA_RTC: South African Realtime Clearing scheme.ZA_RPP: South African Realtime Payments Platform scheme.ZA_EFT: South African Electronic Funds Transfer scheme.CBPR_PLUS: Cross-Border Payments and Reporting Plus.
Identifies the type of EFT payment return.
UNPAID: Occurs when a payment cannot be completed successfully by the homing bank such as due to insufficient funds or account closure. Note that it is impossible for Electrum to reject unpaids received from industry, so a negative payment return response from the partner will always result in a reconciliation exception for inbound unpaids.DISPUTE: Occurs when there is a disagreement between the creditor and debtor regarding a payment and, after investigation with the assistance of their respective banks, the creditor's bank (in the case of a credit) or the debtor's bank (in the case of a debit) decides that the payment should be returned. As for unpaids, it is impossible for Electrum to reject disputes received from industry, so a negative payment return response results in a reconciliation exception for inbound disputes.SYSTEM_ERROR_CORRECTION_REQUEST: Only expected for inbound use and represents the case where a bank from industry has experienced a technical issue that resulted in payments to or from the partner bank being reflected incorrectly (e.g. credits or debits were duplicated) and the industry bank is requesting that the partner bank attempt to correct the error. This case is notably different from unpaids and disputes in that (1) the system error correction request is expected to be best effort and may be rejected by the partner bank if the request cannot be honoured (e.g. due to insufficient funds) and (2) the bank from industry may retry system error correction requests for the same transaction on different days if an earlier request was rejected.HOME_BACK: Occurs when a payment cannot be completed successfully at the operator such as a lack of information required to route to the correct homing bank. Note that it is impossible for Electrum to reject homebacks received from industry, so a negative payment return response from the partner will always result in a reconciliation exception for inbound homebacks.
An account number, shortened to 11 characters according to the account number reduction rules in the EFT technical standards. This field is intended for internal use by Electrum and generally should not be populated by partner implementations.
An account number, shortened to 11 characters according to the account number reduction rules in the EFT technical standards. This field is intended for internal use by Electrum and generally should not be populated by partner implementations.
A list of ReturnReasonInfo values providing detailed reason information for the return.
A valid, active currency code as defined in ISO 4217 indicating the currency of the amount.
The payment amount in the denomination of the indicated currency, in the format '<major units>.<minor units> with the number of minor units (fractional digits) compliant with the number of decimal places published in ISO 4217.
| Currency Code | Example | Valid | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| USD | 10.0 | ✓ | Represents 10 USD and no cents. |
| USD | 10.00 | ✓ | |
| USD | 10.001 | ✗ | US dollar does not support three decimal places. |
| JPY | 10.0 | ✓ | Represents 10 Japanese Yen. |
| JPY | 10.1 | ✗ | Japanese Yen does not support decimal places. |
Date on which the amount of money ceases to be available to the agent that owes it and when the amount of money becomes available to the agent to which it is due.
The message is sent via an Electrum store-and-forward (SAF) queue which repeats the message until you return a positive response.
You respond with an HTTP status code of
202for each transaction request you receive.Once you have successfully processed a transaction, you send an
inboundPaymentReturnResponsemessage to theinbound/payment-return-responseendpoint (PaymentStatusReportschema).
PaymentStatusReport Schema
Holds a point-to-point unique message identification string as well as a message's creation date time.
The date and time at which the message was created, in senders local timezone or UTC. The date must be formatted as defined by date-time in RFC3339
A reference used to unambiguously identify the message between the sending and receiving party. Take note that this uniquely identifies a single message in a potentially multi-message exchange to complete a payment.
A list of key-value pairs to support adding any supplementary/additional data to an Electrum Regulated Payments API message.
Holds a point-to-point unique message identification string as well as a message's creation date time.
The date and time at which the message was created, in senders local timezone or UTC. The date must be formatted as defined by date-time in RFC3339
A reference used to unambiguously identify the message between the sending and receiving party. Take note that this uniquely identifies a single message in a potentially multi-message exchange to complete a payment.
Holds a series of identifiers to identify the transaction or an individual message that is part of a transaction.
Unique identification, as assigned by the initiating party, to unambiguously identify the transaction. This identification is passed on, unchanged, throughout the entire end-to-end chain. Note: this is distinct from the UETR.
Unique identification, as assigned by an instructing party for an instructed party, to unambiguously identify the instruction. The instruction identification is a point to point reference that can be used between the instructing party and the instructed party to refer to the individual instruction. It can be included in several messages related to the instruction.
Unique identification, as assigned by the first instructing agent, to unambiguously identify the transaction that is passed on, unchanged, throughout the entire interbank chain. Usage: The transaction identification can be used for reconciliation, tracking or to link tasks relating to the transaction on the interbank level. Usage: The instructing agent has to make sure that the transaction identification is unique for a pre-agreed period.
Universally unique identifier to provide an end-to-end reference of a payment transaction. This identifier remains the same for all messages related to the same transaction.
APPROVED: The instruction has been approved.CANCELLED: The instruction has been cancelled.PENDING: The instruction is pending.REJECTED: The instruction has been rejected.
A list of StatusReasonInfo values providing detailed reason information for the outcome.
Contains key elements related to the original transaction that is being referred to.
Designates which scheme a payment status report is associated with and describes scheme-specific information for the payment status report.
Electrum acknowledges receipt of each message with an HTTP status code of
202.Once all the transactions for that file have been processed, Electrum will generate:
An EFT data file containing all the unsuccessful transactions (those that could not be reversed) and send the file to BankservAfrica.
Unpaid transactions for all transactions that were successfully processed. For example, if an account at the homing bank was initially erroneously credited, then a successful SEC transaction means that the money could be removed from the credited account. Thus the money can be returned to the original paying account, that is, the original payment instructions are reversed, which is the definition of an unpaid.
The unpaids are included in the next same-day file sent to BankservAfrica.
Error Handling
No Response from BankservAfrica
If Electrum does not receive a file from BankservAfrica, and an acknowledgement message is therefore not received at BankservAfrica, BankservAfrica will notify you that a file has been sent. You will notify Electrum. The issue will be resolved between BankservAfrica and Electrum. The transaction will then proceed as usual.
No HTTP Response from the Homing Bank
If Electrum does not receive an acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement from you in response to a PaymentReturn then the message will continue to be sent. If Electrum then does not receive an acknowledgement (ACK, HTTP 202) before the reconciliation window, this transaction will be considered a reconciliation exception.
This sub-service requires a reply to BankservAfrica in some form. Electrum will consider this as an unsuccessful transaction and it will be included in the file of unsuccessful transactions returned to BankservAfrica.
Negative Acknowledgement from Homing Bank
If Electrum receives a negative acknowledgement (NACK, i.e., an HTTP 5xx or retryable HTTP 4xx) in response to a PaymentReturn, then Electrum will continue to send the message via a store-and-forward queue. If Electrum does not receive an acknowledgement (HTTP 202) before the reconciliation window, this transaction will be considered a reconciliation exception.
Electrum will continue to send the message via a SAF queue for all HTTP 5xx and 4xx NACKs that are considered transient (i.e., recoverable). If Electrum receives an unretryable HTTP 4xx NACK, then Electrum will stop sending the message and the error will be resolved manually.
No PaymentStatusReport from Homing Bank
If Electrum does not receive a PaymentStatusReport message from you before the reconciliation window closes, then this transaction will be considered a reconciliation exception.
This sub-service requires a reply to BankservAfrica in some form. Electrum will consider this as an unsuccessful transaction and it will be included in the file of unsuccessful transactions returned to BankservAfrica.
No HTTP Response from Electrum
If you do not receive an acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement from Electrum in response to a PaymentStatusReport message, then you can retry the message a set number of times before considering the transaction failed. This transaction will be considered a reconciliation exception.
No Response From BankservAfrica
If Electrum does not receive a file response from BankservAfrica, Electrum will notify BankservAfrica that a file has been sent and an issue has occurred. The issue will then be resolved between BankservAfrica and Electrum. The process will then continue as normal.