Subscription Hub — Card-Based Flow

What is a card Standing Instruction (SI)?

A card Standing Instruction is a mandate registered directly on a customer's credit or debit card, under the RBI's e-mandate framework for recurring card transactions. Once registered, the merchant can debit the card automatically on a fixed schedule, up to the amount and validity period the customer has authorized without the customer re-entering card details or re-authenticating for every payment.

Supported networks: Visa, Mastercard, and RuPay both credit and debit cards, subject to the issuing bank supporting e-mandates.

Stages of the card SI flow

1. Registration

Registration is the only step where the customer actively authenticates.

1. The customer initiates a subscription on the business's website or app, and chooses "Card" as the payment method.
2. The customer enters their card details.
3. The customer is shown the mandate terms clearly before authenticating: Business name, debit amount or ceiling, frequency, and mandate start/end date. This disclosure is a regulatory requirement , a customer must never authenticate a mandate without first seeing these details.
4. The customer is redirected to their card issuer's / network's authentication page (e.g. an OTP or 3DS) to confirm the mandate.
5. On successful authentication, the mandate is created and its status becomes active. A unique mandate reference is returned to the business, which is used for all future operations against that mandate.

If authentication fails or is abandoned, the mandate is not created and the customer must restart registration.

2. Pre-debit notification

Before every scheduled debit, the customer must be notified in advance ,this is mandated by the RBI framework, not optional.

• Notification is sent at least 24 hours before the debit date, via SMS and/or email (as configured by the merchant), stating the exact amount and date of the upcoming charge.
• Merchants can use the subscription Hub to send this notification ahead of every scheduled execution.

3. Execution

• On the scheduled date, debit can be triggered against the mandate reference.
• Because the customer already authenticated at registration, no OTP or further customer action is required for the debit itself, provided the amount is within the mandate's authorized ceiling and the pre-debit notification window has been honored.
• The transaction settles like a standard card transaction and flows into the merchant's regular settlement and reconciliation reporting.

4. Handling failures and retries

• A debit can fail for the usual card-decline reasons: insufficient funds, expired card, card blocked, or issuer decline.
• Repeated failures do not automatically cancel the mandate; the mandate stays active for the next billing cycle unless the merchant explicitly cancels it or the card itself expires.

5. Cancellation

• Cancellation / revocation: either the merchant or the customer can revoke a mandate at any time. Once revoked, the mandate is permanently closed, it cannot be reactivated, and a new registration is required if the subscription is to continue.

  Customers can also view and cancel their active card mandates directly from their card issuer's net banking portal or app, independent of the merchant.

Customer experience, step by step

Key statuses to track

• INITIATED — registration started, awaiting authentication
• ACTIVE — mandate authenticated and live
• FAILED — registration or a specific debit attempt failed
• REVOKED — mandate permanently cancelled