Lesson 3 of 3 · 5 min
The permission you gave once
An auto-debit is a standing permission held by your bank or card issuer — which is where it is switched off, and where a forgotten subscription is found.
An auto-debit is not a payment you make each month. It is one permission you gave once, which a merchant then uses again and again. RBI's framework for e-mandate on cards for recurring transactions, issued in August 2019, sets out how that permission behaves.
An additional factor of authentication is required at registration, at modification, at revocation and for the first charge. After that, later recurring charges run without any authentication at all. That asymmetry is the whole design: heavy checks at the start, and nothing to tap afterwards.
The framework does give you two touch points. Paragraph 8 requires the issuer to send a pre-transaction notification at least 24 hours before the actual charge, by a mode you choose. Paragraph 10 says that on receiving it, you may opt out of that particular transaction, or of the e-mandate itself.
Paragraph 15 requires the issuer to provide an online facility to withdraw any e-mandate at any point of time, after which no further recurring transactions are allowed on it. That is where a recurring charge actually ends: at the issuer, in the bank app or netbanking, not in the merchant's inbox.
Put these in order
Put the life of a card e-mandate in order.
- No further recurring transactions are allowed on it
- You use the issuer's online facility to withdraw the mandate
- A notification arrives at least 24 hours before each of those charges
- Later recurring charges run on their own, with no authentication
- The first charge goes through, authenticated as well
- You approve the mandate with an additional factor of authentication
Sort it
1 / 5
Swipe: does this stop the next recurring charge?
Deleting the app from your phone
Match them up
Words on the auto-debit screen
Pick a term, then pick what it does.
Pick a term on the left.
Check yourself
1 / 3
Kabir asks
How long before a recurring charge does the 2019 framework require the issuer to notify you?
Done reading?
Saved in this browser — and finishes the course.