Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What is wrong with Reserve Bank of India?

news.ycombinator.com

81–88 of 88 posts

Re: Ask HN: What is wrong with Reserve Bank of India?

#82
post #44

>In India, you cannot create recurring subscriptions as the RBI prohibits charging the credit card automatically. I am really happy that this is how it is. There is no shortage of cheats and frauds in India. Thanks to the RBI I can rest easy without worrying about getting (unsanctioned) charges on my credit card from shady businesses. The RBI does provide an alternate means for supporting recurring bills. If you are…

Seems like a good opportunity for an Indian startup to make an Uber for India that easy ECS billing each month or before each month or something. I'd happily take an auto-debit of my average spend each month over having to manually do each payment. Maybe keep credits in the account if they go unused.

Uber is not the one that is being fought by a comptetition. As of now Ola rules the Indian online/app hail-a-cab space and it's Uber that is trying to fight them. And yes, they have a "Credit" system where you pay to Ola and you have Ola "credit" or "balance" in your account and you can keep paying using that. Many Indian companies have such "wallets" implemented.

Re: Ask HN: What is wrong with Reserve Bank of India?

#83

>In India, you cannot create recurring subscriptions as the RBI prohibits charging the credit card automatically. I am really happy that this is how it is. There is no shortage of cheats and frauds in India. Thanks to the RBI I can rest easy without worrying about getting (unsanctioned) charges on my credit card from shady businesses. The RBI does provide an alternate means for supporting recurring bills. If you are…

Maybe you're skeptical but if everyone thought like this, here is a small list of things I wouldn't be able to do which I'm really thankful for: 1) AWS bills me automatically every month for the hosting. I'm totally fine with it and kinda happy they do it. 2) Namecheap renews my domains for me (the ones I've setup on auto-renew). I'm happy they do it because I'm traveling a lot. 3) Paying for services like Uber with…

I think there is some merit in what you are saying. But personally I would never allow any company (be it Amazon or Namecheap) to withdraw a variable amount of money from my bank account without prior authorization.

Manual authorization is a minor inconvenience but prevents major headaches down the line. You know like they say: Prevention is better than cure.

>3) Paying for services like Uber with my credit card sounds nice. The process seemed really effortless.

You do not need a credit card for online transactions in India. Credit cards are mostly redundant in the age of internet banking (as far as Indian businesses are concerned). I have never used a Credit Card to buy anything from flipkart etc (I choose the net banking/online payment option always). I guess you do not know about this because the USA does not have creditcardless online payments.

Re: Ask HN: What is wrong with Reserve Bank of India?

#84

>In India, you cannot create recurring subscriptions as the RBI prohibits charging the credit card automatically. I am really happy that this is how it is. There is no shortage of cheats and frauds in India. Thanks to the RBI I can rest easy without worrying about getting (unsanctioned) charges on my credit card from shady businesses. The RBI does provide an alternate means for supporting recurring bills. If you are…

Dude... you just violated the RBI policy by linking their web page. Read: /scripts/disclaimer.aspx Links to this Web Site from other web sites Except as set forth below, caching and links to, and the framing of this Web Site or any of the contents are prohibited. Linking to the Home Page - You may link to the Home Page of this Web Site, http://www.rbi.org.in upon notifying RBI in writing. For hyper-Linking to an inte…

Yeah man, sorry about that. I can't edit the comment now. I will admit the RBI does have some asinine policies.

Re: Ask HN: What is wrong with Reserve Bank of India?

#85

Kudos to RBI for not supporting pre-authorized credit-card transactions. These are a stupid idea. Consumers, never sign up for that crap, even if there are incentives. If you are charged some extra fee, you will not be able to get it back, because you authorized the contract. I almost got charged a superfluous $600 fee this way. Only, the foolhardy merchant sent me advance notice that this charge is coming to my cred…

> They will have to send people bills by e-mail (or perhaps even snail mail) and await payment, like any other honest business. Then suspend the account if it is in arrears for more than X days. How do services like Netflix and Spotify work in India? In the UK I pay Netflix £6.99 a month (about the price of two coffees), and I'd get rather annoyed if I had to send them a cheque for that amount every month :D

There's no need for checks or credit cards India has internet banking (100% online payments).

Re: Ask HN: What is wrong with Reserve Bank of India?

#86

>In India, you cannot create recurring subscriptions as the RBI prohibits charging the credit card automatically. I am really happy that this is how it is. There is no shortage of cheats and frauds in India. Thanks to the RBI I can rest easy without worrying about getting (unsanctioned) charges on my credit card from shady businesses. The RBI does provide an alternate means for supporting recurring bills. If you are…

Maybe you're skeptical but if everyone thought like this, here is a small list of things I wouldn't be able to do which I'm really thankful for: 1) AWS bills me automatically every month for the hosting. I'm totally fine with it and kinda happy they do it. 2) Namecheap renews my domains for me (the ones I've setup on auto-renew). I'm happy they do it because I'm traveling a lot. 3) Paying for services like Uber with…

>419 scammers are not from India

But 420 scammers are! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_420_of_the_Indian_Penal...

Re: Ask HN: What is wrong with Reserve Bank of India?

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're happy to have no SaaS startups? Do you think there might be an alternative solution, that doesn't through the baby out with the bath water?

You can have SaaS startups w/o recurring CC payments.

Talking about CC is a distraction, because the meaning varies in different countries. (debit, credit, post-office, chequing, etc)

The majority of SaaS startups rely on friction free recurring payments. An even larger number of companies have a subscription model; e.g. Spotify, Team Treehouse, Soylent, Birchbox, Makespace and Netfix. Then you have all the 'One Click Purchase' companies like Uber...

The list of companies you can screw over with unnecessary regulation is extraordinarily large.

Re: Ask HN: What is wrong with Reserve Bank of India?

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They will have to send people bills by e-mail (or perhaps even snail mail) and await payment, like any other honest business. Then suspend the account if it is in arrears for more than X days. How do services like Netflix and Spotify work in India? In the UK I pay Netflix £6.99 a month (about the price of two coffees), and I'd get rather annoyed if I had to send them a cheque for that amount every month :D

There's no need for checks or credit cards India has internet banking (100% online payments).

Netflix and Spotify don't do business in India...
Post reply on HN