Request to pay
Asking the drawee to settle. This is the action that starts the endgame: everything after it either ends the bill as paid, or as only recoursable.
Who may perform it
The holder.
Conditions
- The default rule: the bill can't be blocked, recoursed to the end, only recoursable, or paid.
That is the entire list. It looks too short, and it is worth understanding why it isn't.
Nothing says "you cannot request payment twice". Nothing needs to. A RequestToPay can only end three ways: the bill gets paid, the payer rejects, or the deadline expires. The first makes the bill paid; the other two make it only recoursable; and until one of them happens the bill is blocked. Every outcome trips a condition that already forbids a second request. See General conditions.
Note also what is not required: the bill does not have to be accepted. Payment can be requested on a bill the drawee never signed.
Deadline
The holder sets a deadline, with a floor of the UTC end of day of the request plus 48 hours.
While it is open the bill is blocked, waiting for payment, and only three things resolve it: payment arriving, rejection, or expiry.
Requesting before maturity behaves differently
This is the one genuinely surprising rule on this page.
Requested after the maturity date. The deadline is exactly the one the holder set. When it expires, the bill becomes only recoursable.
Requested before the maturity date. The bill is blocked until the deadline the holder set, but when that deadline passes the bill simply unblocks. It does not become only recoursable. The real expiry in this case falls 48 hours after the maturity date, at UTC end of day.
The effect is that an early request cannot be used to force a bill into recourse ahead of time. A holder who asks for payment in September on a bill maturing in November gets a blocked bill and, when their deadline lapses, an unblocked one, not a defaulted counterparty.
Result
A RequestToPay block, and a bill blocked waiting for payment.