Stripe RBI e-Mandate Communication 

Last Updated: Dec 10,2021

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is India's central bank and is responsible for the regulation of the Indian banking system. The RBI announced a host of new guidelines to streamline the process and security measures for card payments, including the requirement of Additional Factor of Authentication (AFA), especially for ‘card-not-present' transactions. This brings changes to the existing e-mandates that are set up to manage recurring payments.

All financial institutions, associated partners, and gateways must comply with these guidelines starting September 30, 2021.

What are e-mandates? 

E-Mandate is a digital payment service initiated by RBI for customers to virtually authorize merchants to collect recurring payments primarily using debit or credit cards.

Chargebee associates each mandate with a subscription and it is recommended that you set up separate mandates for each subscription.

What are the new Guidelines? 

The following guidelines are prescribed by the RBI:

• e-mandates must be set up with Additional Factor Authentication (AFA) with Additional Factor Authentication for every subscription in order to automatically collect recurring payments.

• The AFA requirement for transactions is now increased from INR2000 to INR5000. This means that AFA is mandatory only for transactions that exceed INR5000.

• Banks must inform the customer at least 24 hours before the actual debit/charge of the customer and process payments upon receipt of confirmation that the pre-debit notification has been sent.

• Banks must also provide a post debit notification which includes the name of the merchant, transaction amount, date/time of debit, reference number of transaction / e-mandate, the reason for debit.

• Banks must allow the cardholder to withdraw an e-mandate anytime and immediately stop all recurring payments.

• No charges can be levied to the customer for the creation or modification of e-mandates.

What happens if the guidelines are not followed? 

Non-adherence to these guidelines will mean your customers will experience failures for their recurring payments. Additionally, customers will be required to complete AFA for each transaction as a one-time transaction.

How will this impact my Stripe Integration with Chargebee? 

The following impact may apply to your Stripe integration:

• Stripe's e-mandate creation is limited to cards issued in India and INR currency only. Issuing banks and Stripe do not support the creation of e-mandates for Non-INR currency. As a workaround for non-INR transactions, you can utilize Pay Now to process payments manually.

• Banks will trigger dynamic authentication to complete additional factor authentication (AFA) when setting up the mandate and for transactions that exceed INR 5000. However, not all banks support dynamic authentication.
  Note:Please reach out to Stripe for the list of supported banks.
  Note: If the amount exceeds INR5000, then the e-mandate will require AFA during the pre debit notification.

• For sub recurring payments,Pre-debit notifications must be sent 24 hours before every renewal payment. However, you may experience delays of up to 3 days for payment confirmation.

• All existing customers would need to set up their mandates again post-October 1, 2021 to ensure recurring payments can be processed without AFA.
  Note:Failure to setup updated mandates with customers will require customers to complete AFA for recurring transactions post October 1, 2021.

Click here  to access the Stripe's help document.

What steps should I take to prepare for this change? 

You must complete the following to prepare for this change:

• Contact Stripe to enable the e-mandate workflow for your Stripe account.
• You must ensure that 3DS authentication is enabled in Chargebee for your configured Stripe account.
• Configure your Webhooks within Stripe as all recurring payments are expected to take X+3 days to get a confirmation. This delay can be attributed to RBI guidelines for Issuing banks to send Pre-debit notifications to customers at least 24 hours before the payment can be made.
  For example, if the payment is scheduled for the 1st of every month, the payment will be processed only on the 4th of every month.
  Click here to read more about configuring webhooks.
  Note: Ensure you select receive all events on your Stripe webhook settings.
• Ensure you have Dunning enabled for your Chargebee site and configure dunning email notifications with Pay Now feature to help your customers complete payments.
• Configure your dunning period for an increased number of days to allow a longer grace period for your customers to set up or reauthenticate a mandate or provide alternate payment methods and avoid subscription cancellations.
• Communicate the changes with your customers and ensure they are appraised on the need to come back online to set up a new mandate to continue their recurring payment without AFA post-October 1, 2021.
  • Customers must be encouraged to use the Self Serve Portal to proactively set up new e-mandates for their recurring payments.
  • You can utilize the Custom Email functionality to send notifications to your customers to update the AFA process for new e-mandates.
  • Additionally, you can utilize the Pay Now feature within the dunning emails will assist customers setup new e-mandates.
• The following changes may apply based on the Stripe integration with Chargebee:
  • If you are using Chargebee's Hosted Pages, required updates will be made at the backend to minimize any impact for you as a merchant.
  • If you are using a Custom Checkout with Chargebee.js, most updates are made at the backend to minimize any impact but there is a minor update you need to do to your integration. Please read the recommended steps here .
  • If you are using a Custom Checkout with Stripe.js, this will require changes to the integration and you must contact Stripe's support to determine new parameters and API endpoints. You can also connect with our support team if you require additional assistance. Read more here .
    As a transitory solution, we recommend that you switch to using Chargebee's Hosted Pages until you are able to make all necessary changes to your Custom Checkout with Stripe.js integration.

Stripe e-mandates Setup 

The e-mandate will encompass a broader scope to avoid the need for customers to complete the Additional Factor Authentication(AFA) for any minor changes in amount and frequency. The maximum amount and frequency of the mandate are set up as INR5000 and Sporadic (As presented) respectively.

• All subscription or changes to subscription and one-time payments will have to go through the AFA process.
• The e-mandate setup process can be initiated by a customer upon checkout or via the Self-Serve portal.
• The e-mandate setup process cannot be completed by the merchants on behalf of the customers.
• E-mandates are not displayed within the Merchant App or Chargebee API. However, this is under development and will be part of future updates.

Payment Workflow with e-mandates 

The following workflow applies to the setup of an e-mandate as part of the checkout flow.

The following workflow applies to the recurring payments associated with an e-mandate.

Setup e-mandates 

The e-mandate update process can be initiated by a customer using Chargebee's checkout, Pay Now link, or Self-Serve portal.

Checkout 

The customer is directed to complete the normal checkout process. As part of this checkout, they would be notified about the need to set up e-mandates and their relevance to successful recurring payments. This checkout process will conclude with the customer being redirected to the AFA (3D Secure) process prescribed by their issuing bank.

After successful completion of the authentication process, the e-mandate is set up and all subsequent recurring payments are scheduled subscription cycles based on the e-mandate.

Dunning Emails with Pay Now Link 

When a recurring payment fails due to e-mandate failure, customers will receive dunning emails based on your configuration notifying them of the payment failure and include the link to the Pay Now interface.

The Pay Now interface lists unpaid invoices, customers must select the invoices with identical Subscription IDs to set up a mandate for that subscription and complete the payment for those unpaid invoices while completing the AFA process.

Self Serve Portal 

Customers can choose to utilize the Self Serve Portal to setup their e-mandates. The Self-Serve portal displays the customer's subscription details and directs them to review the notification and set up the e-mandate for their subscription.

After the successful AFA process, the e-mandate is set up for recurring payments and customers will be able to view the e-mandate ID associated with that subscription with the payment method.

Limitations 

• These changes are supported in the V3 (In-App checkout) and not in the legacy V2 full-page checkout.
• The addition of a payment method to a customer ID will not result in the creation of an e-mandate. An e-mandate will be set up only once a subscription is associated with the payment method.
• Consolidated invoicing is not supported since we associate individual subscriptions with a mandate hence, consolidated invoices with multiple subscriptions cannot be associated with a single e-mandate.
• A customer's backup payment methods may also fail until an individual e-mandate is set up with the backup payment method.
• Merchants cannot use the Chargebee Merchant App to create or update subscriptions on behalf of customers since these actions require the customers to complete the mandatory AFA to process payments and set up e-mandates.
• In the case of Account Hierarchy, if the child accounts use the payment methods associated with the parent account must ensure that e-mandate is set up on the parent account.