Pain.Net 1.1.0

Pain.Net

Maintained, tested, zero-dependency ISO 20022 SEPA payment-initiation for .NET. Reads and writes both pain.001.001.09 (customer credit transfer) and pain.008.001.08 (customer direct debit), with NbOfTxs and CtrlSum computed for you on write and re-validated on read.

  MIT   Zero dependencies   Native AOT clean

Why

The long-time incumbent for SEPA XML in .NET, SepaWriter, has been abandoned since 2021. It is write-only, .NET Framework era, and no longer maintained. If you need to emit a payment file today you either fork a dead package or hand-roll System.Xml, and if you need to read a file back you are on your own.

Pain.Net is the maintained replacement: a small, tested, zero-dependency library that both writes and reads the two SEPA initiation messages, using only the in-box System.Xml.Linq. No transitive dependencies, Native-AOT clean, decimal money throughout.

Install

dotnet add package Pain.Net

Write a credit transfer (pain.001.001.09)

using PainNet;

var transfer = new CreditTransfer(
    MessageId: "MSG-001",
    CreationDateTime: new DateTimeOffset(2024, 3, 1, 9, 30, 0, TimeSpan.Zero),
    Debtor: new Party("Acme GmbH"),
    DebtorIban: "DE89370400440532013000",
    DebtorBic: "COBADEFFXXX",
    Transactions: new[]
    {
        new CreditTransferTransaction("E2E-1", 1234.56m, "EUR",
            new Party("Beta SARL"), "FR7630006000011234567890189", "BNPAFRPPXXX", "Invoice 1"),
        new CreditTransferTransaction("E2E-2", 78.90m, "EUR",
            new Party("Gamma BV"), "NL91ABNA0417164300", null, null),
    });

string xml = Pain.WriteCreditTransfer(transfer);

Write a direct debit (pain.008.001.08)

var debit = new DirectDebit(
    MessageId: "MSG-DD-001",
    CreationDateTime: new DateTimeOffset(2024, 3, 1, 9, 30, 0, TimeSpan.Zero),
    Creditor: new Party("Utility Co"),
    CreditorIban: "DE89370400440532013000",
    CreditorBic: "COBADEFFXXX",
    CreditorSchemeId: "DE98ZZZ09999999999",
    Transactions: new[]
    {
        new DirectDebitTransaction("DD-1", 42.00m, "EUR",
            new Party("Customer One"), "FR7630006000011234567890189", "BNPAFRPPXXX",
            MandateId: "MANDATE-1", MandateSignatureDate: new DateOnly(2023, 1, 10),
            RemittanceInfo: "Subscription"),
    });

string xml = Pain.WriteDirectDebit(debit);

Read one back

Both messages read back into the typed model, re-validating NbOfTxs and CtrlSum on the way in.

CreditTransfer parsedTransfer = Pain.ReadCreditTransfer(xml);
DirectDebit parsedDebit = Pain.ReadDirectDebit(xml);

// Or non-throwing:
if (Pain.TryReadCreditTransfer(xml, out CreditTransfer? maybeTransfer))
{
    // maybeTransfer is populated and validated
}

if (Pain.TryReadDirectDebit(xml, out DirectDebit? maybeDebit))
{
    // maybeDebit is populated and validated
}

Creditor scheme-name form

Some banks expect the SEPA creditor scheme name as a proprietary value (SchmeNm/Prtry, the default) and others as a code (SchmeNm/Cd). Both carry SEPA. Select the code form when your bank requires it:

string xml = Pain.WriteDirectDebit(debit, SchemeNameForm.Code);

The NbOfTxs / CtrlSum guarantee

Two fields cause more rejected SEPA files than any other: the transaction count (NbOfTxs) and the control sum (CtrlSum). If they disagree with the transactions actually in the file, the bank rejects the whole batch, and the bug is silent until then.

Pain.Net closes that gap from both sides:

• On write, NbOfTxs and CtrlSum are always computed from the transactions themselves, in both the group header and each payment block. A caller-supplied total is never trusted, because there is no way to supply one.
• On read, the stated NbOfTxs and CtrlSum are recomputed from the parsed transactions and compared, for both messages. If either disagrees, the reader throws PainValidationException (and the TryRead variant returns false). That mismatch is exactly the bug this catches.

All money is decimal, formatted invariant with two decimals and a Ccy attribute. CreationDateTime is caller-supplied and written as ISO 8601, so output is deterministic and testable.

Correctness

Every claim here is backed by the xUnit suite, which runs in seconds:

• Credit-transfer writer produces one PmtInf, the right number of CdtTrfTxInf, the correct IBANs and amounts, and NbOfTxs / CtrlSum equal to the exact decimal sum.
• Full round-trip: write then read recovers the message id, transaction count, and per-transaction end-to-end id, amount, and creditor IBAN.
• Tamper tests: corrupting CtrlSum or NbOfTxs in valid XML makes the reader throw PainValidationException.
• Direct-debit writer emits the right totals, mandate ids, signature dates, and SEPA SEPA / CORE codes, in either SchmeNm/Prtry or SchmeNm/Cd form.
• Direct-debit round-trip: write then read recovers the message id, creditor scheme id, and every per-transaction field, including mandate id and signature date; tampering with CtrlSum or NbOfTxs makes the reader throw.
• Guard rails: empty MessageId, empty EndToEndId, empty MandateId, or a non-positive amount throw ArgumentException.
• Structural: the root is Document in the pain.001.001.09 namespace URN with a CstmrCdtTrfInitn child.

Notes and limitations

• Supports pain.001.001.09 and pain.008.001.08 only, on the SEPA profile (SvcLvl SEPA, direct debits CORE / RCUR, charge bearer SLEV).
• The agents that SEPA makes mandatory are required and always emitted: the debtor and creditor BICs (DbtrAgt / CdtrAgt), and for direct debits the creditor identifier (CreditorSchemeId, written as CdtrSchmeId). Empty values are rejected with ArgumentException.
• IBAN, BIC, and creditor identifier are passed through as strings and are not format-validated here beyond the non-empty check. Validate their structure with a dedicated library before serializing.
• Amounts must have at most two decimal places; more are rejected with ArgumentException. Money is decimal throughout, formatted invariant with two decimals.
• CreationDateTime is written with its UTC offset and round-trips exactly. Sub-second precision is preserved when present (yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.FFFFFFFzzz); a whole-second timestamp is written without a decimal point. The reader also accepts the offset-less form.
• Readers are provided for both messages (ReadCreditTransfer / TryReadCreditTransfer and ReadDirectDebit / TryReadDirectDebit), and each validates both group-level and per-PmtInf NbOfTxs / CtrlSum. A missing Ccy attribute on an amount is rejected with PainValidationException.
• Other optional SEPA elements not modelled include ultimate parties and batch-booking flags. Add them if your bank requires them.
• XML is produced schema-shaped in the correct element order with an explicit UTF-8 declaration and no byte-order mark; it is not validated against the official XSD at runtime.

License

MIT. Copyright Israel Iyonsi.