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What are recurring payments?

When it comes to outgoings, many of them are of a regular nature. Rent payments, health insurance premiums, insurance and subscriptions are just a few examples of payments that occur repeatedly. The bills for such payments always come from the same issuers. However, the amounts that are actually collected may vary, such as with an electricity bill.

Thanks to the direct debit procedure, you don’t have to think about making a transfer and entering or adjusting the necessary information every month or once a year.

What is the direct debit procedure?

The direct debit system (LSV) is a convenient way to handle recurring payments of varying amounts. The traditional version with right of objection is called LSV+ and is offered by almost all banks. Both setup and execution, which can be done in Swiss francs and euro, are free of charge for you as a private individual. At most, you may have to pay a fee if there is not enough money in the account when the amount is about to be debited.

It’s easy to set up a direct debit. The prerequisite is that the biller offers this service. To do so, you and the payee both need to sign a form called “direct debit authorization” or “payment authorization”. The payee sends you the form. You enter your bank details, sign it and send it to your bank, or in exceptional cases directly to the biller. Once your bank has reviewed and approved the direct debit authorization or payment authorization, the company or person is allowed to debit amounts from your account at the regular intervals you agreed.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the direct debit procedure?

The direct debit procedure offers you the following advantages:

  • Time savings: once the direct debit has been set up, you save yourself the effort of repeatedly making manual transfers. 
  • Data entry errors: errors can occur if you have to enter the account number and amount manually each time.
  • Security: the automated payment is made neither too early nor too late. This means you cannot accidentally forget a payment, thus avoiding reminder fees. 
  • Reversals: if you notice a direct debit has been charged incorrectly, you can reverse the transaction within 30 days. At ۶Ƶ, this is easy to do via E-Banking. The amount is usually back in your account after two days.
  • Deletion: as well as objecting to individual payments, you can also object to authorizing certain recipients to automatically debit amounts from your account.
  • Flexibility: unlike with standing orders, payments are also executed automatically if the amounts requested by LSV+ recipients change over time. 

Some effort is still required with direct debits, however:

  • Monitoring: check your account statements to ensure that the regularly executed direct debits are correct and up to date. After 30 days, reversals are no longer possible.
  • Papierform: Die Belastungsermächtigung können Sie beim Verfahren LSV+ nicht auf elektronischem Weg erteilen.

Other options for automatic payments

۶Ƶ standing order

With a standing order, you only enter your data once, just like with a direct debit, and it guarantees that your payments are transferred on time. The amount must be the same each time with a standing order. You can adjust the amounts manually.

eBill

This gives you the option to receive bills via your ۶Ƶ E-Banking and to approve them with just a few clicks, without having to enter additional payment details. Unlike with direct debit, you actively approve each payment, which makes it easier to keep track. There is also an option to set up standing approval, for which you can set maximum amounts for each biller individually. In this case, active approval is no longer necessary; payments are automated. You only receive a notification of the incoming bill to keep track.

SEPA Core Direct Debit

You can settle payment demands in euro easily and securely with the SEPA Core Direct Debit, which includes right of objection. You have eight weeks to object.

Conclusion

To be able to use the direct debit procedure, you only need an account with ۶Ƶ and a contracting partner who offers payment by direct debit – and who is authorized by you to do so via ۶Ƶ. Compared to the one-time effort of filling out a form, you benefit from the many advantages this convenient payment method offers. ۶Ƶ supports you with automated payment transactions – whether you’re sending or receiving payments.

Good to know

Disclaimer

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