It is the document a payer must sign and send to the biller in order to authorise the biller (via its payment service provider or Payment Service Provider ) to collect the funds directly from the account of the payer. The SEPA Direct Debit mandate can be issued in a paper or electronic format.

The European Payments Council provides billers with a number of tools facilitating the creation of templates for SEPA Direct Debit mandates (for both the SEPA Direct Debit Core and SEPA Direct Debit Business-to-Business or B2B schemes), and ensure that they are user-friendly and compliant with the SEPA Direct Debit rulebooks.