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About payment references

Learn about how different payment schemes handle payment references.

How it works

When you send a payment, you can supply a reference for yourself (payments.internalReference) and a reference for the recipient (payments.externalReference).

For payments.external.reference, we allow a maximum of 256 characters. However, it's important to note that each payment scheme has their own reference limits and this can be as low as 18 characters. If a payment reference exceeds the limit set by the payment scheme, it will be truncated.

Limits per payment scheme

The following table describes the maximum length allowed for the reference field, per payment scheme.