What Is a Registered Mandate?

A registered mandate (RM) is a debit order mandate whose details are registered at the payer's bank through the Registered Mandate Service (RMS), without the payer having to electronically approve the mandate. It forms part of South Africa's modern ISO 20022 collections system — the same generation of payment rails that powers DebiCheck.

Registered mandates were introduced because real-time authentication is not always possible. Some payers hold company accounts, some accounts require multiple signatories, and some payers simply cannot complete a DebiCheck authentication on their phone. RMS gives collectors a way to place the mandate on record at the payer's bank in these situations.

How does a registered mandate work?

When you register a mandate through RMS, the following happens:

1. You capture the mandate details — payer, account, amount, frequency and collection date — as agreed in your contract with the payer.
2. Your sponsoring bank sends the mandate details to the payer's bank using ISO 20022 messages.
3. The payer's bank records the mandate against the payer's account and notifies the payer, typically by SMS or an app message.
4. The payer does not approve the mandate, but can query or dispute it with their bank.
5. You can then submit collections against the registered mandate.

The key difference from DebiCheck is step 3: the payer is informed, not asked. With DebiCheck, the payer must actively authenticate the mandate before collections can begin.

Why register a mandate instead of using an ordinary EFT debit order?

An ordinary EFT debit order relies entirely on the mandate you hold on file. The payer's bank has no record of the agreement, so disputes usually go the payer's way unless you can produce strong evidence.

Registering the mandate changes that position:

• The payer's bank holds the mandate details on record.
• The payer is notified when the mandate is registered, so a later claim of "I never knew about this debit order" is harder to sustain.
• Collections against registered mandates process in the early processing window, ahead of ordinary EFT debit orders.
• Collections can be tracked for available funds for up to ten days, in the same way as DebiCheck collections.

Registered mandates therefore sit between plain EFT and DebiCheck: stronger dispute evidence than EFT, but without the payer authentication that gives DebiCheck its full protection.

When should you use a registered mandate?

Registered mandates are most useful when DebiCheck authentication is impossible or impractical:

• The payer's account belongs to a company or other juristic entity.
• The account requires multiple signatories to approve transactions.
• The payer does not have a cellphone or cannot receive authentication requests.
• DebiCheck authentication attempts repeatedly fail or expire.

For these scenarios, see Registered Mandates for Juristic and Multi-Signatory Accounts.

Where the payer can authenticate, DebiCheck remains the stronger option. The industry direction in South Africa is to move collections off legacy EFT and onto DebiCheck and registered mandate rails.

What do you still need to hold yourself?

Registration does not replace your obligation to obtain a valid mandate from the payer. You must still meet the minimum mandate requirements, keep the signed or electronically accepted mandate on file, and ensure every collection matches the mandate terms. If a dispute arises, the registered record and your underlying mandate together form your evidence.

Does Kwik support registered mandates?

Yes. Kwik offers registered mandate collections alongside DebiCheck and EFT debit orders, so you can register mandates, submit collections and track outcomes from a single platform.

Related topics

• Registered Mandates hub
• RM vs RMS: What Is the Difference?
• Registered Mandates vs DebiCheck vs EFT Debit Orders
• How Are Registered Mandates Registered and Payers Notified?