It's now easier to take Direct Debit globally

Taking Direct Debit payments used to mean integrating with a different payments scheme in each country you wanted to collect from. We're changing that. From today, we no longer require you to specify the Direct Debit scheme when setting up a mandate through our Pro API. We'll automatically detect the best Direct Debit scheme to use, based on your customer's bank account:

GET https://api.gocardless.com/customer_bank_accounts/BA123 HTTP/1.1
HTTP/1.1 200 (OK)
{
  "customer_bank_accounts": {
    "account_holder_name": "Edith Piaf",
    "country_code": "FR",
    "currency": "EUR",
    ...
  }
}

POST https://api.gocardless.com/mandates HTTP/1.1
{
  "mandates": {
    "links": {
      "customer_bank_account": "BA123",
      "creditor": "CR123"
    }
  }
}

HTTP/1.1 201 (Created)
Location: /mandates/MD123
{
  "mandates": {
    "id": "MD123",
    "scheme": "sepa_core",
    ...
  }
}

We're the only provider that links UK and SEPA Direct Debit in a single API, but this is just the first step in building a truly global Direct Debit network. You shouldn't need to worry where your customers are located to be able to take payments from them, and we'll be working on making this even easier over the next few months.

First we'll be making it possible to take payments in any currency from any account, without worrying about the forex, and also to receive payouts in whatever currency you prefer. This will mean you can collect £10 a month from all your customers, whether they're in London or Luxembourg. You'll also be able to collect in several currencies and receive all your payouts in one currency.

Then we'll be adding more schemes, from Swedish Autogiro to Australian BECS, so you can take Direct Debit payments from anywhere using just one API.