How UPICs Work

The figure below describes how the UPIC concept integrates with the existing EPN payment system. The responsibilities of buyers, sellers and their respective financial institutions are outlined.

Pre-Condition: The seller has obtained a valid UPIC from its bank and that UPIC has been communicated to the buyer along with the Clearing House universal routing and transit number (URT).

	Buyer originates an ACH by entering the URT and the seller's UPIC into the normal routing and account number fields in either its cash management, accounts payable system, or home banking application.
	Buyer bank receives ACH payment request, identifies it as a UPIC transaction. Buyer bank debits the buyer's account. Optionally, the buyer bank can check the UPIC against their internal list of UPIC numbers to determine if it's an "on-us" transaction.
	Buyer bank sends the ACH payment instruction to the Electronic Payments System (EPN) for settlement.
	EPN validates the UPIC against the Clearing House database. If the UPIC is invalid, the ACH payment instruction is returned to buyer bank with the appropriate error advice.
	Once validated, EPN replaces the universal routing number and UPIC with the seller bank routing number and the seller's account number.
	ACH payment information is then routed to the seller bank.
	Seller bank receives the ACH payment information and credits the seller's account.
	If there is a problem at the seller bank receiving the payment, it is returned through the EPN system. EPN recognizes returns specific to UPIC and translates seller account information back into the universal routing number and UPIC before returning the payment instruction to buyer bank.
	Banks maintain UPICs related to their business customer accounts through an interface with The Clearing House.
	UPIC database on EPN is updated daily with changes from the master UPIC database.