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Recipients need to know who paid them and why. What they see on their bank statement depends on two things:
  • The sender name. This comes from the account the money leaves. On US rails and some other corridors that’s the account holder, and on others it’s a fixed Lightspark entity. You can’t set it per payment.
  • The payment reference. You set this on each quote with remittanceInformation, and on ACH also with statementDescriptor. Grid puts it in the right field for the rail.
On every corridor, the recipient gets at least a payment reference or a clearing ID to identify the payment.

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Fields you control

Set these on POST /quotes. Both are optional, but send them on every payout.
statementDescriptor is rejected with 400 INVALID_INPUT on a quote that moves no ACH entry, so leave it out for non-ACH destinations. When you omit it on ACH, Grid uses its default.
If you leave remittanceInformation empty on a cross-border payout, Grid may fill the reference with the sending customer’s name: the company legal name for a business, or the first and last name for an individual. Don’t rely on this. Set the reference yourself.

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Sending from US accounts

On US rails, the recipient sees the account holder name of the account the payout leaves. Depending on how your platform is configured, that’s either your platform’s own account or an account held by your customer:
  • Payouts from your customer’s account show your customer’s name as the sender.
  • Payouts from your platform’s account show your platform’s name as the sender. Add your customer’s name in the payment reference.
The name you give each internal account in Grid is for your own reconciliation. Recipients don’t see it. For example, your platform, Acme Pay Inc, pays Ben from its own account on behalf of your customer ABC Corp: If the payout leaves an account held by ABC Corp instead, Ben sees ABC CORP as the sender, and you can use the descriptor and reference for your own invoice details. Outbound wires aren’t enabled for every platform. Contact Lightspark if you need them. Each bank decides what to display. Some show every field, and others shorten or hide names, so treat these examples as the best case. On ACH, the 10-character descriptor is the field banks show most reliably, so lead with your customer’s name there. To set references when you pay out from your platform’s account on a customer’s behalf:
1

Send from the account tied to that customer

Send each payout from the internal account you use for that customer, so the payment is tied to them in Grid.
2

Set statementDescriptor on ACH payouts

Set statementDescriptor to your customer’s name in capitals, 10 characters or fewer. Abbreviate long names yourself so the bank doesn’t cut them off. Leave it out on RTP, FedNow, and wire payouts.Grid rejects blank values, all zeros, MISC, and the values NACHA reserves for system entries (REVERSAL, RETURN FEE, AUTOENROLL, NONSETTLED, RECLAIM) with 400 INVALID_INPUT, in any letter case. If a customer’s name matches one of these, use a different abbreviation.
3

Set remittanceInformation

Set remittanceInformation to the customer’s name plus your reference, most important words first. Use plain letters, numbers, and punctuation.

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Sending to other countries

On cross-border payouts, the sender name depends on how the corridor settles locally. Corridors fall into three groups: The payment reference on every row is remittanceInformation. Each recipient bank decides how much of the sender name and reference to display.
Before you go live, contact Lightspark to confirm the sender name on the corridors you plan to use, and send a test payment on each one.

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Best practices

  • Always send remittanceInformation. On fixed-name and reference-only corridors, it’s the only way the recipient can tell who the payment is from.
  • Put the most important words first. Many rails shorten the reference, sometimes to 15 or 16 characters. ACMELTD INV4471 survives shortening and Payment for invoice 4471 from Acme Ltd doesn’t.
  • Use plain letters and digits. remittanceInformation accepts printable ASCII only, so remove accents before you send it (Jose, not José). Some rails, such as SEPA, then keep only letters and digits.
  • Don’t promise a sender name you can’t control. Tell your customers that the sender name depends on the corridor, and that the payment reference is the reliable way to identify a payment.

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Common questions

Can I change the sender name to my brand or my customer’s name? Not per payment. On US rails, the sender is the account holder name of the account the payout leaves, which is your customer when you send from their account. On fixed-name corridors, it’s the Lightspark entity that settles the payout. What if I leave remittanceInformation empty? On cross-border payouts, Grid may use the sending customer’s name as the reference. On US rails, the reference is left empty and only the sender name and, on ACH, the default descriptor appear. Why does the recipient see a shorter reference than I sent? Each rail and bank has its own length and character limits. Grid shortens the value to the rail’s limit, and the recipient’s bank may shorten it further.