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Obtaining and Processing Mandates

Zuora

Obtaining and Processing Mandates

Worldline has ceased support for this platform and new instances of this gateway are not supported in Zuora. Please use Worldline Global Collect instead.

Obtaining and Processing Mandates

For countries that require a mandate, mandates must be obtained prior to debiting a customer's account for payment. The process for obtaining and processing mandates vary by country, with each country having its own rules and regulations. Please review the Worldline Global Collect Legacy Business Guide to Direct Debit for more information on the mandate process by country. This guide can be obtained from the Worldline Global Collect Legacy implementation manager assigned to your account. 

How to Obtain the Mandate Form

Some countries allow the merchant to print a mandate form and provide it to their customer, while other countries require the form to be ordered by the bank. In some countries, electronic mandates can be used while others have a paper mandate process. 

Information Required on the Mandate Form

If there is no standardized mandate form for a certain country, it is important to determine which information is required and ensure the information is on the form you wish to utilize.

Notification to Customers

Notification to customers may or may not be mandatory but is advised to reduce the number of reversals. It is best practice to notify the customer in advance of the payment amount prior to debiting the customer's account. Notification is particularly important when the recurring payment amount or frequency changes. 

Administration of Mandates

The merchant is responsible for storing the mandate and keeping their database updated with any changes to the mandate. If Worldline Global Collect Legacy receives notification that a mandate has been amended or canceled (for UK direct debit only), Worldline Global Collect Legacy will notify the merchant through electronic mail and any information which cannot be provided electronically will be sent via priority postal mail.  Maintaining an updated database helps reduce the number of both transaction declines and reversals. 

Mandate Processing Schedule

For electronic mandates (UK direct debit only), the merchant will prepare a file that is submitted to Worldline Global Collect Legacy. The processing of the mandate file depends on the country of processing and the collection date delivered in the file. Worldline Global Collect Legacy requires one business day to process the file. 

Mandates for Existing Customers Which Are Migrated to Zuora

If you have any existing UK or Netherlands direct debit customers that will be migrated to Zuora, you will need to specify (on the payment method) whether the customer has an existing mandate in place and if any payment transactions have already been processed against that mandate. You can do this by selecting either "TRUE" or "FALSE" for the payment method attribute called "Existing Mandate." 

Existing Mandate & Transaction Type

If Existing Mandate = TRUE, then Zuora will mark the first and all recurring payment transactions processed in Zuora with a TransactionType of "17" (for UK) and "02" (for Netherlands). A TransactionType of  "17" and "02" indicate that the transaction is recurring, and the mandate in place already has one or more payments processed against it. 

If Existing Mandate = FALSE, then Zuora will mark the first payment transaction processed in Zuora with a TransactionType of "01" (this applies to both UK and the Netherlands direct debit). A TransactonType of "01" indicates the payment is the first one of a recurring sequence. Subsequent transactions processed against this mandate will be marked as recurring with a TransactionType of "17" or "02."

For example, you have an end customer based in the UK called Acceleration Group. Acceleration Group has a mandate in place allowing you to debit their account directly for subscription fees.  In the process of migrating this customer to Zuora, you will create the customer account and a direct debit payment method. The payment method has a flag called Existing Mandate which you will need to mark as TRUE.  By doing this, when you process the first payment for Acceleration Group using Zuora, that payment transaction and all subequent payment transactions will be marked with the correct TransactionType of "17" or "02."

The TransactionType is not passed in payment transactions for direct debit outside of the UK and Netherlands, since this is only a requirement for those two countries. 

Importance of Indicating the Correct Transaction Type

The agency that oversees direct debits in the UK and in the Netherlands may review transactions processed against mandates. If these agencies see transactions marked incorrectly it can trigger warnings and concerns around the validity of the mandate, possibly causing the payment to fail. In the example above, if Accleration Group's first transaction processed in Zuora is marked with transaction type "01," and the direct debit agency sees that the mandate has already been used to process multiple recurring payments in the past, it will raise concerns around the validity of the mandate.