Transaction Fields: Description and Reference clarification

Note

Definitions discussed below are of fields in Version 1.5.1 of the Consumer Data Standards.  

Question

Clarification on the below fields:

Is the field description  meant to be a simple description along the lines of "online banking transfer" or "ATM withdrawal" ?

• description - The transaction description as applied by the financial institution. 

Is the field reference meant to be a message a customer could potentially enter into a transaction or is this meant to be an internal reference number of a transaction?

• reference - The reference for the transaction provided by the originating institution. Empty string if no data provided.

Answer

In response to the questions regarding transaction fields:

The description field is intended to capture the description of the transaction as it would be presented in Internet Banking or on a statement.  Note that there is no obligation to provide the description from a non Data Holder service. Only information sourced from the Data Holder is expected.

The reference field is intended to be the reference supplied by the payer on payment initiation. It may vary according to the type of transaction.  For instance, for a BECS transfer the reference is an 18 character field that must be populated by the originating institution.  For other payment types, especially for internal transfers within an institution, the mapping of this field should be determined by the data holder.

In the BECS example the reference field is populated by the original Payer (not the Payer's institution).  We would normally expect reference to be populated by the initiating payer unless an automated process initiated the payment. It would be unusual for the Data Holder to populate this field unless that payment was an intra-bank transfer or initiated by the Data Holder directly (as would occur for an automated loan repayment).

The Data Standards Body is currently defining conventions, which contain recommended best practice from the community but are binding.  If you think the mapping of the reference field could be determined by convention,  you can propose a convention as described in the Conventions page.

See BankingTransaction