Over 80% Indians back RBI's move to stop auto-debit, shows survey

Despite several tech startups and multinationals raising heat and dust over the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) decision to stop the auto-debit rule, eight out of 10 cardholders seem to have given the central bank's move a thumbs up. 

According to a survey conducted by community social media platform - LocalCircles - only 23% of customers who paid for apps in the last 12 months said they support the RBI to mandate OTP-based authentication transactions for making all app purchases and renewals. 

The central bank has stopped all automatic recurring payments for services including recharge and utility offered by several companies of the likes of Netflix, Amazon or many applications or apps. 

Also Read: RBI's new auto-debit rules kick in from today; check out details

This means there will be no automatic recurring payment for various services including recharge and utility bills as the additional factor of authentication (AFA). 

Under the RBI's new rules that came into effect from October 1 banks will be required to inform customers in advance about recurring payment due and transactions would be carried out following nod from them. 

So, the transaction would not be automatic but would be done after authentication from the customer. For recurring payments above Rs 5,000, banks are required to send a one-time password to customers as per the new guidelines.

Meanwhile, several companies have claimed that the new rules have caused disruption in services as many customers are not able to or unwilling to go through the monthly permission routine.

The survey further revealed that several Indians said they faced problems with the auto-debit rule earlier. 46% of consumers who paid for apps in the last 12 months said they were wrongly charged or overcharged.

Also Read: Debit card, credit card auto-payment: What are the big changes?

The survey comprised 40,000 responses from 302 districts in the country. It also highlighted that in most cases Indians purchased the apps from foreign entities.

"The next question in the survey sought to understand from consumers if applications they use raise the invoice. In response, 48% said, "don't know". Breaking down the poll, 33% said the applications they use are billed by a foreign entity. Only 19% of Indian consumers who paid for apps for Google Playstore, Apple Appstore and Windows store said they were invoiced or billed by an Indian entity," the survey noted.