Because Portugal is in both the eurozone and the SEPA area, every bank account in Portugal is eligible for SEPA Direct Debit withdrawal. Paying telecom bills, insurance premiums, and utility bills through automatic account withdrawal is common practice, and this is a market where consumers have relatively little reluctance about payments that move directly to and from a bank account, such as reference-number payments, which fits well with this method.

Because payment isn't interrupted by a card expiring or being reissued, it is especially effective at preventing churn in recurring-billing models such as streaming, SaaS, memberships, and subscription deliveries. Conversely, it is not well suited to one-off, high-value sales because of processing delays and refund-right risk, so we recommend routing one-off payments to instant-approval methods like MB WAY or cards and reserving SEPA Direct Debit for subscriptions only.

Once a merchant obtains a consumer's withdrawal authorization (a mandate), it pulls payment from the consumer's account for each subsequent billing cycle. Unlike a card authorization, the withdrawal is not confirmed instantly — bank processing takes business days, and it can be returned if the balance is insufficient or the consumer raises an objection. This means the risk policy for the gap between the withdrawal request and service delivery, and the mandate wording and storage requirements, must be finalized before integration.

Through Hecto Financial, a Korean business can consider integrating with the SEPA account withdrawal scheme, and consultation is needed on mandate collection methods and recurring billing cycle design as well. The actual scope of support and terms (settlement cycle, fees, currency options) vary by industry and transaction structure.

• Business registration country

  Confirm whether a contract is available for merchants registered in Korea

• Sales channels

  The integration approach and priority differ depending on your online sales channel mix, such as your own store, open marketplaces, or a mobile app

• Product categories

  Confirm in advance whether your category falls under the merchant policy restrictions of the SEPA Direct Debit operator

• EU regulatory compliance

  Confirm compliance with EU payment regulations such as PSD2 and SEPA (see the official sources below)

Once a withdrawal is completed, the euro (EUR) funds are collected by Hecto Financial and, after a currency conversion process, settled to the Korean merchant in whichever of USD, KRW, or JPY was chosen in the contract. A key point to note is that under SEPA Direct Debit rules, a consumer can request a refund for any reason within 8 weeks of the withdrawal date, and if they claim the withdrawal was unauthorized, they can raise an objection for up to 13 months. Assuming this possibility of a chargeback during that window, you need to design risk policies such as limiting high-value one-off transactions and timing the delivery of digital goods accordingly, and you also need to prepare separately for refunds arising from an EU consumer's statutory right of withdrawal (14 days).

• Banco de PortugalOfficial information on Portugal's payment systems and related regulations. If the content of this page differs from the actual regulations, the official source takes precedence.