A payment instruction is an order given to a bank or other payment provider to transfer money. It states, at minimum, the amount and currency, the account to be debited, the payee and their account details, and when the payment should be made, and it often includes a payment reference and charge instructions. Instructions can be given in many ways: a form completed in a banking app, a standing order, a file such as a pain.001 sent by a business, an API call, or a message between banks such as a pacs.008. The term is broader than payment order, which in EU and UK law has a specific legal meaning, and it overlaps with automated payment instructions set up to recur. Errors in an instruction, such as a wrong account number, are a common cause of misdirected payments, and fraudsters frequently try to alter instructions through payment diversion fraud. An instruction to send money abroad is an international payment instruction.