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>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. The

>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 a business in India try looking into the ECS option: http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/ECSUser.aspx http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/ECSUser.aspx

captn3m0 12y ago
ECS is really hard to setup for a consumer service. Maybe companies targeting enterprises can get this setup, but its really hard to charge a regular consumer for a regular service using ECS.
- radmuzom 12y ago
  In most cases where I made cancellations of a service, they disconnected immediately. Let's say that I had a subscription of cable broadband, and I have already paid till the 30th of June. I call them up on 18th of June and ask for a cancellation - then the cancellation happens by 19th of June whereas any deposit paid gets refunded a few weeks later. This sort of situations has happened to me multiple times in India. I am glad that RBI is looking out for us. The additional regulation is a minor cost of doing business, and those who can't afford that cost should not be in business at all. Given that there are multiple SaaS companies running successfully in and out of India - some serving purely Indian clients - the rant of the OP is absolutely baseless. Thank you RBI.
  - captn3m0 12y ago
    >Given that there are multiple SaaS companies running successfully in and out of India - some serving purely Indian clients - the rant of the OP is absolutely baseless. While I agree that this is RBI looking out for us, its not completely right to say that SaaS companies in India are not facing issues. Companies like Zoho are not able to target Indian companies because they can't invoke subscription billing.
    - tormeh 12y ago
      Why not send their customers a monthly bill and cancel service if the user doesn't pay? The customers just set up a recurring monthly payment in their bank.
      - captn3m0 12y ago
        Yes, this is a workaround that is not directly supported by any payment gateway in India so far, which means you have to implement the entire thing yourself.
        tormeh 12y ago
        It's not a workaround, though; it's more consumer-friendly than the "normal" subscription model. That companies can just pull money out of your bank account is not a good thing. In Germany it's really hard to get people to sign up for subscriptions because companies usually make it really hard to unsubscribe and just continue pulling money from the account. With a push-model like the one described above, the customer just cancels the payments and that's the end of it.
Tarang 12y ago
> There is no shortage of cheats and frauds in India. I would argue any place can have cheats. That's why you can reverse and dispute card transactions if they are fraudulent.
- scotty79 12y ago
  Recurrent payments make possible softer kinds of frauds where you extract money from people for services they don't need or use only because they forgot they ordered them or can't be bothered to cancel.
  - Tarang 12y ago
    If its a fraud its a fraud you can get your money back. There's a difference between being cheated and wanting the service & being willing to pay for it. I might point out on Paypal you get an email every time a charge is done and you can easily cancel any subscription in under a minute quite easily so you wont forget about anything. Direct Debit (such as that offered by HDFC, Axis, etc) can also do the same thing, although it is more difficult to cancel than a credit card would be & less services are available to it. Also consider if you pay cash/neft/rtgs/paytm for 12 months upfront instead of every 1 month recurring for a subscription service. Its going to be harder to get that back (and perhaps not possible) if you decide to cancel halfway than it would be with a credit card/paypal.
    - scotty79 12y ago
      I still prefer to pay up front. At least I need to carefully consider if I actually want the service. I heard a lot of stories how hard is to get out of gym membership. If someone uses tricks in my psychology to make me pay for the service I don't use I consider it to be a scam. Visa might think otherwise.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - kamaal 12y ago
      >>If its a fraud its a fraud you can get your money back. Sorry, but in a country where credit card companies send the local mafia after a person if they miss a few EMI's. No one is realistically going to trust 'dispute the transaction, get your money back' promise. There will be so much fraud from both the ends, it will be hard to bring the chaos in control. India needs a lot of social evolution before you could trust the public with these things. We can't even discard a biscuit packet properly, let alone these kind of things.
lnanek2 12y ago
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.
- todd3834 12y ago
  What does that have to do with Uber? I'm missing the connection.
- balladeer 12y ago
  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.
guruparan18 12y ago
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 http://www.rbi.org.in upon notifying RBI in writing. For hyper-Linking to an internal page of this Web Site (not being the Home Page) the user must make a specific request for, and secure permission from RBI prior to hyper-linking to, or framing, this Web Site or any of the contents, or engaging in similar activities. RBI reserves the right to impose conditions when permitting any hyper-linking to, or framing of this Web Site or any of the contents.
- droidist2 12y ago
  What's the reasoning behind the policy against linking to them? That seems crazy.
- programmer_dude 12y ago
  Yeah man, sorry about that. I can't edit the comment now. I will admit the RBI does have some asinine policies.
superasn 12y ago
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 my credit card sounds nice. The process seemed really effortless. 4) I'm sure I can think many more things where this is a convenience for the customer. > Thanks to the RBI I can rest easy without worrying about getting (unsanctioned) charges on my credit card from shady businesses. There are cheats and there is a system for dealing with cheats. It's the same everywhere (419 scammers are not from India). You don't unplug from the internet on Windows just because there are a tonne of viruses for Windows. You install an anti-virus or firewall for that. > If you are a business in India try looking into the ECS option: I know about the ECS option but that really doesn't work very well with online business. As far as I know you need a Void check from the customer and there is paperwork (AFAIK). Also what about international customers, just because you're based here does not stop you from having those.
- thisisit 12y ago
  ECS doesn't require a void check. The electricity bill which you might be paying via your credit card on a monthly basis is an ECS payment. The only problem here is as a business you cannot set it up for a customer, like the AWS bill because "ECS Credit can be used to pay interest, dividends...." (pay; not charge) Customer needs to add and set it up on his own, so thats a bummer for sure.
- programmer_dude 12y ago
  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.

captn3m0 12y ago

ECS is really hard to setup for a consumer service. Maybe companies targeting enterprises can get this setup, but its really hard to charge a regular consumer for a regular service using ECS.

radmuzom 12y ago
In most cases where I made cancellations of a service, they disconnected immediately. Let's say that I had a subscription of cable broadband, and I have already paid till the 30th of June. I call them up on 18th of June and ask for a cancellation - then the cancellation happens by 19th of June whereas any deposit paid gets refunded a few weeks later. This sort of situations has happened to me multiple times in India. I am glad that RBI is looking out for us. The additional regulation is a minor cost of doing business, and those who can't afford that cost should not be in business at all. Given that there are multiple SaaS companies running successfully in and out of India - some serving purely Indian clients - the rant of the OP is absolutely baseless. Thank you RBI.
- captn3m0 12y ago
  >Given that there are multiple SaaS companies running successfully in and out of India - some serving purely Indian clients - the rant of the OP is absolutely baseless. While I agree that this is RBI looking out for us, its not completely right to say that SaaS companies in India are not facing issues. Companies like Zoho are not able to target Indian companies because they can't invoke subscription billing.
  - tormeh 12y ago
    Why not send their customers a monthly bill and cancel service if the user doesn't pay? The customers just set up a recurring monthly payment in their bank.
    - captn3m0 12y ago
      Yes, this is a workaround that is not directly supported by any payment gateway in India so far, which means you have to implement the entire thing yourself.
      - tormeh 12y ago
        It's not a workaround, though; it's more consumer-friendly than the "normal" subscription model. That companies can just pull money out of your bank account is not a good thing. In Germany it's really hard to get people to sign up for subscriptions because companies usually make it really hard to unsubscribe and just continue pulling money from the account. With a push-model like the one described above, the customer just cancels the payments and that's the end of it.

Tarang 12y ago

> There is no shortage of cheats and frauds in India. I would argue any place can have cheats. That's why you can reverse and dispute card transactions if they are fraudulent.

scotty79 12y ago
Recurrent payments make possible softer kinds of frauds where you extract money from people for services they don't need or use only because they forgot they ordered them or can't be bothered to cancel.
- Tarang 12y ago
  If its a fraud its a fraud you can get your money back. There's a difference between being cheated and wanting the service & being willing to pay for it. I might point out on Paypal you get an email every time a charge is done and you can easily cancel any subscription in under a minute quite easily so you wont forget about anything. Direct Debit (such as that offered by HDFC, Axis, etc) can also do the same thing, although it is more difficult to cancel than a credit card would be & less services are available to it. Also consider if you pay cash/neft/rtgs/paytm for 12 months upfront instead of every 1 month recurring for a subscription service. Its going to be harder to get that back (and perhaps not possible) if you decide to cancel halfway than it would be with a credit card/paypal.
  - scotty79 12y ago
    I still prefer to pay up front. At least I need to carefully consider if I actually want the service. I heard a lot of stories how hard is to get out of gym membership. If someone uses tricks in my psychology to make me pay for the service I don't use I consider it to be a scam. Visa might think otherwise.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - kamaal 12y ago
    >>If its a fraud its a fraud you can get your money back. Sorry, but in a country where credit card companies send the local mafia after a person if they miss a few EMI's. No one is realistically going to trust 'dispute the transaction, get your money back' promise. There will be so much fraud from both the ends, it will be hard to bring the chaos in control. India needs a lot of social evolution before you could trust the public with these things. We can't even discard a biscuit packet properly, let alone these kind of things.

lnanek2 12y ago

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.

todd3834 12y ago
What does that have to do with Uber? I'm missing the connection.
balladeer 12y ago
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.

guruparan18 12y ago

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 http://www.rbi.org.in upon notifying RBI in writing. For hyper-Linking to an internal page of this Web Site (not being the Home Page) the user must make a specific request for, and secure permission from RBI prior to hyper-linking to, or framing, this Web Site or any of the contents, or engaging in similar activities. RBI reserves the right to impose conditions when permitting any hyper-linking to, or framing of this Web Site or any of the contents.

droidist2 12y ago
What's the reasoning behind the policy against linking to them? That seems crazy.
programmer_dude 12y ago
Yeah man, sorry about that. I can't edit the comment now. I will admit the RBI does have some asinine policies.

superasn 12y ago

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 my credit card sounds nice. The process seemed really effortless. 4) I'm sure I can think many more things where this is a convenience for the customer. > Thanks to the RBI I can rest easy without worrying about getting (unsanctioned) charges on my credit card from shady businesses. There are cheats and there is a system for dealing with cheats. It's the same everywhere (419 scammers are not from India). You don't unplug from the internet on Windows just because there are a tonne of viruses for Windows. You install an anti-virus or firewall for that. > If you are a business in India try looking into the ECS option: I know about the ECS option but that really doesn't work very well with online business. As far as I know you need a Void check from the customer and there is paperwork (AFAIK). Also what about international customers, just because you're based here does not stop you from having those.

thisisit 12y ago
ECS doesn't require a void check. The electricity bill which you might be paying via your credit card on a monthly basis is an ECS payment. The only problem here is as a business you cannot set it up for a customer, like the AWS bill because "ECS Credit can be used to pay interest, dividends...." (pay; not charge) Customer needs to add and set it up on his own, so thats a bummer for sure.
programmer_dude 12y ago
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.