Online Direct Debit for Irish Banks

We now implement Online Direct Debit for Irish Bank customers. This means that customers can opt to pay for goods and services using direct debit from their bank accounts instead of credit cards online.

What are the criteria to enable Direct Debit on your website.

As a merchant you must have direct debit plus enabled with your bank, this allows you to take direct debit instructions over the phone. There are a number of restrictions as to what kind of a customer bank account is eligible for an online direct debit instruction.

1. the account has to be a single signatiry account
2. the account has to be with an irish bank
3. the account has to be enabled fopr direct debits to occur on it

Once all 3 criteria are sathisfied the direct debit can occur once or be setup to occur recurring. If it is a recurring direct debit then we store a recurrent token for the charge on your webserver and this is then used for recharging the customers account when the need arises. This can be automated to happen every x days, or the x day of the x week in a month etc. 

Its an excellent system ideally suited for service providers getting signups online and payment straight away before the service is commenced. 

Advantages

1. cuts down on the admin work of chasing up direct debit mandate signatories
2.  gets the money direct into your bank account the day the form is signed online
3. allows you to control when the debits occur enabling you tomanage cash flow in your business
4. more secure than a regular credit card.
   
5. cuts down on bad debt and alrts you early to customer credit issues.