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"GoCardless is launching a new tool today to help small and medium-sized businesses accept direct debit payments online.\r\n\r\nLarge companies have had access to this for years, but many smaller firms are still stuck sending out invoices, waiting for cheques or long-winded bank transfers from numerous clients. It\u2019s tiresome and ultimately involves an awful lot of legwork, which is a detrimental to small teams who just want to keep developing their core product or service.\r\n\r\nPayPal has been doing this for a while, but GoCardless wants to make the process cheaper and simpler to manage. So for starters, there\u2019s no upfront costs or monthly fees. The company charges users 1 percent of each transaction, although \u00A32 is the uppermost limit.\r\n\r\nPayPal, in comparison, charges 3.4 percent plus a standard rate of 20 pence and there\u2019s no ceiling on overall transaction fees.\r\n\r\nThe UK-based startup accesses the direct debit network through its sponsor, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and is registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as a small payments institution, so it\u2019s fair to say your money is safe at all times.\r\n\r\nUsers can request a payment either through the GoCardless dashboard, available from any browser, or the company\u2019s existing API. It\u2019s a very straight-forward process, requiring only an amount, reference or description and payment frequency.\r\n\r\nGoCardless then generates a custom link, which directs the user to an online checkout not too dissimilar to Stripe. The usual bank account details are submitted, and then the payments are sent to the user\u2019s bank account after seven working days.\r\n\r\nThe dashboard also shows a history of the direct debit payments processed through GoCardless, filtering requests by when they were created, customer name and status (pending/paid out).\r\n\r\n\u201CDirect debit is the most reliable way to take payments, but until now SMEs, from wholesalers to service companies, were shut out,\u201D Matt Robinson, founder of GoCardless said.\r\n\r\n\u201CGoCardless gives them instant, easy access to the payment method their larger competitors have been using for years.\u201D\r\n\r\nThe caveat is that at the moment, GoCardless is strictly focused on small businesses in the UK. That means the service can\u2019t be used to accept payments from non-UK bank accounts - although the company plans to be available across the EU \u201Csoon\u201D.\r\n\r\nImage Credit:\u00A0Christopher Furlong/Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/18/gocardless-adds-new-tools-to-help-small-businesses-request-and-accept-direct-debit-payments-online/>