Debit orders made safe and simple

The Payments Association of South Africa is piloting a new system, DebiCheck, which it says is fair and secure for banks, their clients, and the companies they do business with.

DebiCheck requires you to authenticate a new debit order before it is processed for the first time — via SMS — protecting you from rogue debit orders.

And payment-dodging consumers won’t easily be able to dispute such debit orders, as their banks will have their authentication on file.

If a bank receives an instruction to debit its customer’s account, and the DebiCheck debit order information cannot be found on its system, or doesn’t match, the order will not be processed.

DebiCheck makes provision for scheduled increases, like annual subscription increases or interest raterelated increases. Consumers will need to confirm upfront that such increases may be applied.

FNB’s CEO of consumer core banking, Ryan Prozesky, says FNB believes DebiCheck will provide a necessary “breakthrough” in addressing and reducing debit-order fraud.

A few companies are already using DebiCheck in its pilot phase and is expected to be fully rolled out by February next year.

“We expect its use to become more prevalent after July, as the project starts ramping up and more companies become involved,” says Pasa CEO Walter Volker.