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Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

gocardless.com

31–40 of 96 posts

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#31
post #9

Its a great idea, but will customers really be comfortable providing websites with their bank details in order to make a single purchase?

Presumably you'll set the direct debit up on the GoCardless service, and then authorise each payment through them. So just like a third-party credit card processor, the merchant never sees your details, just that the payment has been authorised.

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#32

Awesome. I looked into doing this in Denmark about two years ago, but it fell to "schlepp"-avoidance. It's worth noting that PayPal already does exactly this, although I can see the value in cutting them out of the loop.

How much do they charge you?

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#33
post #25

At first I thought this was awesome. Then I realized I would never open my bank account to anyone again after a Paypal incident. Great price and I'm in on that, but the system needs work.

This is protected by the Direct Debit Guarantee scheme:

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman...

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, I've let that go straight over my head. It's the same deal though at the end of the day, as a business I want to take payments from my customers without hassling them to make manual transfers. So an id for cc details is the same as bank details from my end providing I can request payments for flexible amounts. Service providers in the UK seem to be able to change the amount I pay on direct debit agreeme…

Looking at the API, if you have the agreement set up you can make charges up to a maximum limit (that you can see) without further customer interaction. If you need to interact with the customer there are different API calls, eg to increase limit, get initial agreement.

Interesting, thanks for pointing that out.

So id have to get the customer to agree to authorise an amount larger than their current subscription fee so that it has scope to cover upgrades and extra services - something doesn't quite feel right there, maybe I'm approaching it completely wrong.

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

£2 is the most you'll pay as a fee. 1% or £2, whichever is lower.

I wonder if there is a minimum of 1p? Either way this is potentially compelling for micropayment type solutions...

Presumably the fee is on the aggregate payment, rather than individual transactions.

Edit: Hmm, with a ceiling of £2 that doesn't make sense. Oh well.

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#37

I don't get why the US and UK rely so much on payment methods that rely on the secrecy of some unique codes, that you have to trust every payee to secure. Seems backwards to me. Here in Portugal we have both direct debits and "service payments" (for one-off stuff), and in both cases the payee is the one telling the bank about the payment (usually on the bank's website or an ATM). There are codes involved (the merchan…

That requires your customer to actually go to the banks website/ATM and pay you.

Yes, and no. Bank has APIs for including/opening popup with a very simple "focused on this transaction only" form for a quick payment sign from the user. So this is integrated into the seller site purchase flow.

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#38
post #23
post #9

Its a great idea, but will customers really be comfortable providing websites with their bank details in order to make a single purchase?

This is how a lot of payments are conducted in Germany. It's easy and secure for the customer as he can reverse fraudulent charges. What makes this different than providing websites with your credit card details?

liability in the UK is different: credit card transactions are heavily protected (you're guaranteed to get your money back), whereas direct bank transfers are vastly less protected (with the exception of direct debits).

can you even have a one-off direct debit? I didn't think the system was really designed for that.

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#39
post #25

At first I thought this was awesome. Then I realized I would never open my bank account to anyone again after a Paypal incident. Great price and I'm in on that, but the system needs work.

What's the Paypal incident?

Just a personal incident. They took the cash out of a connected bank account following the classic "I didn't receive the delivery" scam dispute where I was the seller.

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the API, if you have the agreement set up you can make charges up to a maximum limit (that you can see) without further customer interaction. If you need to interact with the customer there are different API calls, eg to increase limit, get initial agreement.

Interesting, thanks for pointing that out. So id have to get the customer to agree to authorise an amount larger than their current subscription fee so that it has scope to cover upgrades and extra services - something doesn't quite feel right there, maybe I'm approaching it completely wrong.

It appears so from this example, where there is a usage based fee

https://gocardless.com/docs/api_guide#pre-authorization

I can't see any guidelines about how you are recommended to approach these types of situation. In some ways pre-setting a max limit is nice for the customer if you warn them when they approach. I know people who have been billed huge amounts on AWS without really realizing. SO long as you hand hold the customer and your pricing model is simple to understand you should be able to make it work out I would think. For upgrades there is probably no reason not to get explicit agreement (presuming it is just a checkbox really, no need to give the acount details again after all), it is variable usage that is more complex I would think.

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