In Southern Africa, debit orders are still the primary method for collecting recurring revenue. In South Africa alone, more than 70 million recurring debit order payments are processed each month, worth more than $7.5 billion.

The payment method is especially popular for high value transactions, as the fees are more cost effective than card payments for transactions greater than R600 (approximately $38) – ranging from R1.80 to R8.00 per transaction (less than $0.50). With the introduction of DebiCheck in 2021, businesses can also track customer accounts to identify when there are funds in the account, increasing payment success rates.  

Banks dominate the debit order collections market with a specific focus on large-volume clients, where margins are extremely tight. However, integrating with banks is complex, slow, and time consuming, with limited flexibility and few settlement options. This is especially painful for fast-growing and mid-market businesses, which do not always have the technical resources to complete direct bank integrations.

At the same time, managing debit orders at scale can be risky and expensive. Banks often update their integration specifications, and managing submission cut-offs and payment failures can be a painful process. This results in high operating costs, multiple implementations, and unpredictable payment failures that can be difficult to resolve.

That’s why we built Revio’s Debit Order API – a flexible API framework that simulates bank authentication, collections, and payment services capabilities, to enable businesses to collect debit order payments at scale. This capability enables merchants to accelerate their time to market, whilst ensuring security and stability with a robust testing environment. The API has auto-reconciliation and settlements built in, with one integration point for collections (EFT Debit and DebiCheck), payments (EFT, Debit Order, and RTC), and authentication.

Our API has been proven to simplify and accelerate client testing and onboarding, for businesses from scale-ups to large-scale enterprises. Our documentation enables clients to self-service and test, with experts on call as needed. We also provide more than just collections – for example, enabling clients to split fund settlements per debit order transaction.

How Revio’s Debit Order API can help

• Increase success rates: Collect recurring revenue at scale, with higher success rates than Card and alternative payment methods through fewer chargebacks, technical failures, and expired card details.
• Accelerate time to market: Integrate faster with bank-grade security and simulated testing, increasing speed to market without compromising on security. Ensure compliance with real-time monitoring of limits and risk, and built-in industry rules.
• Reduce operational costs: Benefit from a team that is continuously maintaining and enhancing the API functionality, with outsourced support and troubleshooting. For transactions greater than $38, businesses also save on transaction fees.
• Faster settlement and reconciliation: Set up daily settlements with real-time reconciliation of collection results with bank statements. Seamlessly settle to multiple accounts in multiple countries and currencies.
• Free up working capital: Banks require businesses to hold 10-25% float in their collection account. With Revio, you can eliminate these float requirements through our automated reconciliation engine, freeing up your working capital to fund growth.

‍Who is Revio’s Debit Order API for?

• Recurring revenue businesses can increase collections success rates, reduce operational costs, and increase speed to market through integrating with Revio’s Debit Order API. Fast-track your revenue realisation, while ensuring bank-grade security and compliance.
• Businesses scaling into South Africa can quickly activate a trusted, secure payment method widely used and accepted by consumers. Debit orders, especially pre-authenticated DebiCheck collections, are also subject to fewer chargebacks and expiry failures, reducing your involuntary churn.
• Payment Service Providers (PSPs) looking to offer a unified recurring payments offering to merchants, and reduce charge-backs and payment failures. There is a significant opportunity to offer debit order as a recurring payment method to scaling and mid-market businesses in Southern Africa, who are typically underserved. Through Revio’s Debit Order API, PSPs can increase payment success rates and help merchants collect more revenue, without needing to absorb messy bank integration and support into their core operations.

How our clients are using Revio’s Debit Order API

Rapidly-scaling FinTech

Our client is a rapidly growing FinTech offering affordable insurance and debt consolidation solutions to more than 10,000 South African customers. The company needed a secure and trusted way to collect recurring payments from customers, for payment values often greater than $50. The team was impressed by Revio’s simple integration process and ability to eliminate float requirements, enabling them to reinvest working capital in their growing business. The fact that Revio can seamlessly activate additional payment methods for ad hoc payments was a bonus, making our API a one-stop-shop for all their needs.

IoT Security platform

Our client is a dynamic security platform that offers on-demand security and emergency response solutions leveraging Internet of Things technology. The company needed to collect recurring payments from customers and was looking for a solution that maximised success rates and minimised transaction costs. The team chose Revio as our platform enabled them to seamlessly create customer subscriptions, collect payments through a reliable and familiar payment method, and follow up automatically on any payment failures.

‍Ready to get started? Request a demo or get in touch with one of our experts at info@reviopay.com