Recurring Standing Instruction(s) or mandate is a recurring payment facility offered on Citi credit and debit cards for payments across various Merchant/Product/ Service Providers such as OTT subscriptions (such as Netflix etc.), Mutual Funds and SIPs, insurance payments, utility bill payments, etc.
Effective 1 October 2021, Recurring Standing Instruction(s) maintained with the Merchants can be authorized/approved by Citi only if the respective Merchant/Product/Service Provider has initiated the transaction request as per the new standards laid by RBI. If we don’t receive the transactions in the required format, we will be constrained to decline these recurring payments set up for your Standing Instruction(s), to comply with the regulatory requirements
As per the RBI circular1 for ‘Processing of e-mandate on cards for recurring transactions’, Banks are advised to take customer authentications for all domestic/international transactions which are above the threshold decided by the regulator and notify customers for mandate setup, modification, cancellation or transaction authorization etc. Pursuant to this regulation, there may be transactions from merchants that would require additional factor of authentication (AFA) via OTP in case transaction amount exceeds the amount threshold set. This regulation is applicable to domestic/international recurring transactions maintained with the merchant directly by customer only.
As per the latest RBI guidelines2, transactions from merchants which are over INR 15,000 will be required to be authenticated via OTP. To support this change, the implementation is completed at Bank end. However, the processing of such transactions is also subject to the required changes being implemented by the merchants and aggregators.
1RBI/2020-21/74 DPSS.CO.PD No.754/02.14.003/2020-21 & RBI/2019-20/47 DPSS.CO.PD. No.447/02.14.003/2019 – 20
2RBI/2022-23/73 CO.DPSS.POLC.No.S-518/02.14.003/2022-23
As stated above, Bank has made the changes specified in RBI guideline and it seems that your Merchant has not yet made the changes specified in the regulation and hence these transactions are declined.
Recurring transactions for amount less than INR 15000 are getting declined because the Merchant has not made the specified changes at their end and is not sending the transaction in formats specified by the regulators
You may check with your Merchants and Service Providers if they are complying with the new RBI guidelines and will be able to support recurring transactions in the specified format going forward. For a list of major merchants supporting new RBI guidelines, click here.
As per the RBI regulation, this change is applicable to all recurring transactions- new or old. If your Merchant/Product/Service Provider is unable to send the transaction details as per the required format, it will be declined by Citi.
You can register your Standing Instruction(s)/mandate again if the Merchant/Product/Service Provider has complied with the regulations
As per RBI regulation, International Merchants/ Product/ Service Provider are also required to follow the same guidelines. If the International Merchant/ Product/ Service Provider is not adhering to these guidelines and not sending the recurring transactions in the specified format, then it will be declined, irrespective of the amount.
If the Merchant/Product/Service Provider is sending the transaction details as per the regulations, then e-mandates/SIs will be processed even if the CNP functionality is blocked or in offline mode.
Please contact your Merchant/Product/ Service Provider and make alternative arrangements for payments like making one-time payments through Citibank Credit/ Debit card or setting up payments through the Confirm and Pay mode on Citibank Billpay to ensure continuity of service and avoid any defaults.
This regulation is applicable to Domestic/International recurring transactions maintained with the Merchant/Product/ Service Provider directly by customer. If your utility payment Standing Instruction(s) registration was done using the Confirm and Pay mode on Citibank Billpay then there will be no impact to your utility bill payment due to this change. However, utility payment standing instruction(s) registration done on Auto Pay will be declined 29th December onwards. It is recommended that you de-register your existing Auto Pay standing instruction(s) and register afresh using the Confirm and Pay mode to avoid any defaults.
As per RBI regulation, this change will be applicable to all recurring trasactions- new or old. Therefore, you are advised to register new Standing Instruction(s) for continuity of payments.
You may also want to cancel your existing mandates with your Merchants/ Product/ Service Providers to avoid any duplicacy in case a new mandate is registered.
The revised guidelines are applicable to all Domestic banks and you might have received similar communication from other banks as well. Please reach out to them for any further clarifications.
Your transaction will be stepped up by OTP authentication and for processing the same, successful OTP authentication would be required.
You will have to contact the Merchant/ Product/ Service Provider with whom you have set up the Standing Instruction(s).
You can easily manage all your SIs by following the steps below:
Step 1: Click on the link – https://www.sihub.in/managesi/citi
Step 2: Enter your Citi Card number
Step 3: Enter and verify the OTP received on your registered mobile device
Step 4: A list of all your SIs will be displayed. You can easily view and modify these SIs
You may explore the Confirm and Pay mode on Citibank BillPay. Please note that this is only available for domestic merchants who are onboarded on Bill pay platform. Click here to watch a demo video on how to use these alternate payment modes.
Citi will not decline the transactions if Merchants/ Product/ Service Providers are adhering to and sending the transactions as per the RBI guidelines.
These are technical changes specific to Merchants/Product/ Service Provider as per RBI guidelines.
These are technical changes specific to Merchants/ Product/ Service Provider as defined by RBI. Please ask them to reach out to their Acquiring Bank/Payment Aggregator/ Payment Gateway for the same.