Information on Regular Payments

What is a ‘Regular’ Payment?

Regular payments can be either a recurring payment or an instalment payment. A Regular Payment represents an agreement between you (the cardholder) and a merchant in which you authorise the merchant to debit your card at predetermined intervals (e.g. monthly or quarterly) or at intervals as agreed by you. The amount may differ or be the same for each transaction.

An example of a Regular Payment could be if you request your local gym to charge your membership fee to your credit card each month or if you have purchased a new television from your local appliance store and are being billed by the merchant in subsequent multiple periods.

What are the benefits of Regular Payments?

Some of the benefits for cardholders who set up regular payments include -

1. Ensuring timely payments to the merchant
2. Saves you time as the payment is processed automatically
3. Saves you money as you do not have to pay for cheques, money transfers or postage, nor will you be liable for late fees.

Your Responsibilities & Obligations

Regular Payment arrangements are an agreement between you (the cardholder) and the merchant. You should keep a record of all regular payment arrangements you have established with your merchant and store it in a safe place. You may need to refer to your records in the future. A template for recording your regular payment arrangements is available below.

You are responsible for notifying the merchant when your card details change, including a change in card number and/or change of card expiry date. Until you notify the merchant, your bank is required to process transactions from the merchant. A template for you to utilise which will advise the merchant of any changes in account details is available below.

We recommend you keep a copy of any correspondence that you provide to a merchant together with records of any earlier Regular Payment agreements. This correspondence will be required if the merchant fails to comply with your request in a timely manner and you decide to dispute any incorrectly charged Regular Payments.

Your Rights to Dispute a Regular Payment

Any issues with your Regular Payments, including the failure of the merchant to act on a change in account details advice, should be initially taken up directly with the merchant. Should further assistance be required to resolve an issue between yourself and a merchant please refer to the Disputed Transaction Form in the “Contact Us” section or your nearest branch for more information.

Templates for your use

Record of Regular Payments Template

We encourage you to utilise the below template to record any regular payment authorities held with a merchant.

Notification of new card details – Letter Template

If you have a regular payment authority set up with a merchant and your card details change, please utilise the below letter template to notify the merchant of your new card details.