The Canadian Direct Debit scheme has strict requirements for sending notifications to customers. For you as a merchant, it’s important to understand exactly what kind of notifications you need to send, and how to handle them. Our guide will walk you through the process, helping you design fully compliant customer notifications that you can send to your customers yourself.
Direct Debit notifications fall into two categories, which can be sent together:
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Direct Debit setup confirmation
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Payment notifications (also known as ‘advance notice’)
The steps outlined below are a requirement of the PAD scheme in order for your custom notifications to be compliant.
Please note: Custom notifications will need to be approved by GoCardless before being implemented.
Direct Debit Instruction setup confirmation
A Direct Debit setup confirmation tells your customer that their Direct Debit Instruction has been set up correctly. Your customer must receive this within no less than three working days prior to their first payment being charged. You can send the Pre-Authorized Debit agreement setup confirmation by email or post.
To be compliant and provide the best customer experience, a Pre-Authorized Debit agreement confirmation must include the following information:
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Heading that is identifiable to payers |
For example “Important: Confirmation of the setup of your Pre-Authorized Debit agreement to [Merchant]” |
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Your 'Merchant name' |
The name through which the customer's payments will be processed |
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Payer details as obtained in the sign-up process |
The payer's redacted bank details, the name of their bank, the Pre-Authorized Debit reference and the name registered against the authorisation |
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Merchant contact details |
Merchant email address and phone number |
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A link to a copy of the mandate PDF and terms and conditions |
This information can be retrieved via the mandate pdf endpoint. |
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Regulatory footer & privacy notice |
Text to read: ‘Payments securely processed by GoCardless. GoCardless Ltd (company registration number 07495895) is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Services Regulations 2017, registration number 597190, for the provision of payment services. |
Payment notifications
A payment notification tells your customer when they can expect a single payment or stream of regular payments to leave their account. Just like Pre-Authorized Debit setup confirmations, payment notifications are mandatory within the Canadian Direct Debit scheme. You can send them by email or post.
To be compliant, a payment notification must be received by the payer a minimum of 3 business days prior to the payment being charged, and must include the following information:
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Your merchant name |
The name of the business charging the customer |
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Payer details |
Semi-redacted (asterisked) customer (payer) bank account details and name of the customer's bank |
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Payment details |
The amount, reference and date of the collection(s) |
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Advance notice |
How much notice will be given for future payments (if this is the first notification) |
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Contact details |
The contact email address and phone number of the merchant |
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Regulatory footer & privacy notice |
Text to read: ‘Payments securely processed by GoCardless. GoCardless Ltd (company registration number 07495895) is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Services Regulations 2017, registration number 597190, for the provision of payment services. |
For a one-off payment payment notification email you will need to include all of the above details.
Important: It is recommended to also include the date that the email is being sent in case a customer or bank were to dispute the date they received the advance notice. Example: This notification was sent on January 3, 2023.
For subscription payments, where the frequency and amount remain the same, you can send a single payment notification email to cover the entire subscription.
Submit notifications to GoCardless for approval
Example templates of your payment pages must be sent to GoCardless for approval prior to your go-live date. Once you have written approval from GoCardless, you may implement the payment pages.
To test your payment pages, you can sign up here for a sandbox account.