credit or other prepaid cards for recurring payments,and this is official from September 1, 2019. This means we will no longer have to
undergo the tedious two factor authentication process every time we carry out a regular transaction at our usual merchant.
RBI Allows e-Mandate For Recurring Transactions :-
The Reserve Bank of India has issued a notification, in which it states that it has finally allowed the processing of e-mandates on debit cards, credit cards and prepaid cards for recurring transactions.
The process of e-mandate will be in place from September 1, 2019.
This new development now eliminates the previous measures of the requirement of AFA (Additional Factor of Authentication) that were demanded by the RBI for safety and security purposes.
The RBI has agreed to the requests of industry stakeholders of allowing the process of e-mandates to simplify the recurring transactions.
The notice issued by the RBI says, “Keeping in view the changing payment needs and the requirement to balance the safety and security of card transactions with customer convenience, it has been decided to permit processing of e-mandate on cards for recurring transactions (merchant payments)…”
RBI Issued Guidelines Regarding e-Mandate :-
However, there is a set of instructions that the RBI has put in place to be followed, which can be seen below.
- The process of e-mandate is permissible for all types of cards – debit, credit, PPIs (Prepaid Payment Instruments) which will include wallets too.
- Card holder will be required to carry out a one time registration process to initiate the e-mandate.
- Card holder will be given an option to provide e-mandate for a fixed or a variable value which will be specified beforehand. Any change in the mandate will require authentication again.
- There is a maximum limit of Rs. 2000 that will be permissible for a transaction. Transactions above Rs. 2000 will be subject to the usual norms which were being followed up until now.
- The card holder is at liberty to cancel the e-mandate at any time he wishes to, however, there is an exception for a transaction that is in pipeline. A pipeline transaction for which ‘pre-transaction notification has already been sent to the cardholder, but the debit has not been communicated to or received by the cardholder, and the e-mandate withdrawal happens during the interregnum.’
