Hi Fellow entrepreneurs, SmartEats is on a movement to make people healthier and happier by changing the way India Snacks. We deliver 100% natural, delicious, unique and healthy snacks as a convenient subscription. I trying to increase the duration for which people would subscribe to this service and am exploring introducing standing instructions as a payment method. Currently RBI does not allow multiple charges on one authentication in CNP transactions.
Can someone please help me understand how can I take standing instructions for recurring deduction online?
For example ICICI Prudential does it here https://www.iciciprulife.com/customer/payonlinepreloginview/view/payonlinepreloginStandaloneSI.jsp and Wine society of India does it here https://www.thewinesocietyofindia.com/MemberRegistration.aspx
It will tremendously help SmartEats in spreading the movement.
Thanks
Avni Garg
Rishi
Avni — We had similar issues in the past and I’d be interested in knowing if things changed or if there are any alternatives.
AFAIK, it’s not possible to setup recurring *credit* card payments using Indian payment gateways due to strict RBI guidelines. And it’s not getting easier at all; see this. One workaround I’ve been suggested by one of my friends who’s done it is you setup your company as a US (or Singapore) entity, host it there, and accept payments into US bank account. There are multiple discussions on the web that talk about this issue and workarounds. Here’s couple of them:
https://blog.chargebee.com/restricted-by-paypal-alternate-recurring-billing-options-for-startups-in-apac/
https://blog.chargebee.com/payment-integration-options-for-startups-in-india/
Disclaimer: I’m not related to ChargeBee in any manner whatsoever
For Debit, you might want to further explore ECS debit clearance which utilities/bill payment companies leverage. Although I’m not sure if it’s applicable to all businesses. May be you can talk to your bank?
https://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/ECSUserView.aspx?Id=25
My guess on your examples: ICICI prudential being a financial institution might be a different story. Not sure how Wine Society of India does it, but my guess would be that it has a foreign parent entity. I just did a random search and found this link: https://www.gryphonbrands.com/wine_clubs.htm
Good luck and please let us know if you find a workaround 🙂
avni garg
Thanks Rishi for responding. You are absolutely right in all your observations. It is unfortunate to see that international firms like Linkedin, Facebook and Yahoo can charge indian credit cards multiple times but India companies can not. One more example of over governance inhibiting growth. Hopefully RBI will become saner.
I contacted Paypal for their recurring charge facility as well but it seems that is not available for indian payers 🙁
Starting a business in India is not becoming any easier..
Gunjan
Hi Avni/Rishi,
I landed on this discussion page while looking for options of recurring payments solutions. Has anything changed since 2013 or are things just the same wrt RBI norms about recurring credit card payments or ECS debit.
I also read about FreeSpring, has anyone used that.
Thanks,
Gunjan