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Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

gocardless.com

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Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#61

Post by timthorn »

ashconnor wrote: post #59

Although I like the idea aslong as banks charge anything up to £40.00 for a failed direct debit I can't see it catching on. If there's not enough funds in Paypal it will just bounce the payment with no charge (providing you aren't funding your account with your bank account).

Given that DD is a very well established service with high takeup, there is evidence that the UK population is happy to use it. However, there may be an issue with the public not trusting unknown companies to take payment this way.

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#62

Post by rayhano »

Two questions:

1. How quickly is the money in the merchant account after the payment is authorised by the consumer?

2. Is the Faster Payments system now the new standard? If so, what is the difference between this and electronic Direct Debit and will you be porting onto Faster Payments?

3. What is next for GoCardless, apart from user (business) acquisition?

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#63

Post by mseebach »

alexchamberlain wrote: post #32
mseebach wrote: post #29

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?

About £0.50 per payment, regardless of size. Certainly quite affordable, I chickened because the terms and conditions if you're handling payments for others was grey area at best, and it was hard to determine what regulations would apply for a cash-holding transaction-middleman.

They also only process direct debits monthly, and the payment needs to be advised weeks in advance, so the debtor can object. Fine for recurring memberships etc., not really suitable for one-off payments.

Finally, there's a deeply entrenched national debit-ish card, run by the same nominally private sector entity running direct debits. They essentially write their own rules for the entire sector in Denmark, and I wasn't really too keen on going up against them. So perfect match for the schlepp-essay :)

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#64

Post by sborsje »

matthewking wrote: post #48
sborsje wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the site doesn't look great, but their platform works pretty good (well, apart from the abysmal SOAP API) and they offer support for lots of different payment methods (including direct debit, in lots of countries). So I truly don't understand why everybody is suddenly getting so excited about direct debit payments?

When your customers money and your businesses reputation are at stake trust is a huge issue. The website doesn't look great and gives hardly any information on the services. I'm sure if they smartened up their website and offered a REST API they'd be in a much better position for web based startups to consider them, otherwise I'm left searching for signs that its a professional and trustworthy company to try and bala…

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with you on the design part.

But what I'm trying to figure out is if design and a REST API are the only 2 things where GoCardless outexecutes competitors. Especially since direct debit clearly isn't something new and there are other players in the field that offer a much broader support for different kinds of payment methods.

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#65

Post by alexchamberlain »

rayhano wrote: post #62

Two questions: 1. How quickly is the money in the merchant account after the payment is authorised by the consumer? 2. Is the Faster Payments system now the new standard? If so, what is the difference between this and electronic Direct Debit and will you be porting onto Faster Payments? 3. What is next for GoCardless, apart from user (business) acquisition?

Faster payments are customer originated, whereas Direct Debits are merchant originated.

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#66

Post by celticninja »

blibble wrote: post #38
eis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In this situation it is a direct debit so has very strong protection in place.

Yes a DD can be used to make a single payment, it can make a repeat payment of a varying amount or a fixed amount. it is quite a flexible system.

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#67

Post by PedroCandeias »

vasco wrote: post #47
justincormack wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which bank has those APIs?

I know for sure Montepio has them. Probably others too but that's the only one I use. I pay all my bus tickets with it directly from the bus company website.

Vasco, can you please point me to that website? I'm researching online payment solutions in Portugal and would love to see that implementation. Thanks.

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#68

Post by matthewking »

sborsje wrote: post #64
matthewking wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your customers money and your businesses reputation are at stake trust is a huge issue. The website doesn't look great and gives hardly any information on the services. I'm sure if they smartened up their website and offered a REST API they'd be in a much better position for web based startups to consider them, otherwise I'm left searching for signs that its a professional and trustworthy company to try and bala…

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with you on the design part. But what I'm trying to figure out is if design and a REST API are the only 2 things where GoCardless outexecutes competitors. Especially since direct debit clearly isn't something new and there are other players in the field that offer a much broader support for different kinds of payment methods.

Id guess so yes but also market reach. I have a UK business and currently our customers are manually transferring money to us every quarter because I couldn't find a simple, easy and cost effective way to retrieve payments.

I hadn't come across Adyen until you mentioned them here.

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#69

Post by nixy »

justincormack wrote: post #55
nixy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Sweden—all major banks.

Do they use the same API? Or do I have to code each bank? Can you pay to other EU countries? Is there a good documentation source?

APIs are, as far as I know, not publicly available. Each bank has their own API—again as far as I am aware.

I have never seen any integration of this sort with a Swedish bank on an international site, but I don't know if that is because international vendors don't want to bother with integrating with a number of different bank APIs in X number of countries, or if you need to have a local (Swedish) account to be able to process payments this way.

Re: Direct Debit API for 1%; max £2

#70

Post by matthewking »

justincormack wrote: post #40
matthewking wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hol…

If we are able to provide some blurb on the form then it can probably be explained adequately to alleviate any of the customers concerns, on the other hand if they just see a form asking for authorisation to take an amount over their standard subscription it probably won't work.

I agree that subscriptions could change if they just have to tick a box and not provide all their details again, it's just that in our case we often provide a small variable number of one off add-on services to each customer over a month which we'd ideally not have to ask them to pay for seperately.

I've signed up for their beta though and sent them an email, hopeful that its workable. If they can do what we need id be a very happy man.

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