Meet our new digital direct debit authorization flow: your customers activate direct debit in seconds, right inside your product, and you get a payment method ready to debit.
If your business charges customers every month in Mexico, direct debit is probably already on your radar. Loan installments, gym memberships, utility bills: more and more of them get collected straight from a bank account, and the pace is picking up. According to Banxico, direct debit transactions in Mexico grew 13.7% from 2023 to 2024, faster than the 10.3% yearly average between 2015 and 2021. We bet on this early. In 2023, Belvo pioneered API-based direct debit in Mexico, so businesses could plug into one integration and collect from their customers' bank accounts without wiring up each bank on their own. Today, R2, Smart Fit, Banco Plata, and Bitso run their recurring collections on it.
Millions of transactions later, we know exactly where things still get stuck. For most businesses, the trouble starts before the first charge: getting each payer to authorize the debit.
If your business charges customers every month, direct debit is probably already on your radar. Loan installments, gym memberships, utility bills: more and more of them get collected straight from a bank account, and the pace is picking up. According to Banxico, direct debit transactions in Mexico grew 13.7% from 2023 to 2024, faster than the 10.3% yearly average between 2015 and 2021. We bet on this early. In 2023, Belvo pioneered API-based direct debit in Mexico, so businesses could plug into one integration and collect from their customers' bank accounts without wiring up each bank on their own. Today, R2, Smart Fit, Banco Plata, and Bitso run their recurring collections on it.
Millions of transactions later, we know exactly where things still get stuck. For most businesses, the trouble starts before the first charge: getting each payer to authorize the debit.
The paperwork problem
In Mexico, nobody can debit an account without the account holder's go-ahead. Sounds fair. The tricky part is how that go-ahead usually happens: someone collects documents and customer details, bundles them up, and sends the package to the payment provider by email, API, or SFTP. Meanwhile, the payer digs up paperwork to prove the account is theirs, the business chases whatever is missing, and the first charge waits until everything clears. Multiply that by every new account in a direct debit program, and that adds up to a lot of waiting around.
So we sat down with our direct debit customers to see how their users actually get through this. Their wish list came down to one thing: a standard digital step, inside their own product, that authorizes a payer in seconds. That's what we built.
What digital direct debit authorization does
Digital direct debit authorization is the strong authentication step that lets a payer activate direct debit inside your product, in seconds and without collecting consent documents.
Your customer enters their CLABE or debit card number, reviews the terms of what they are authorizing, and confirms. In the background, Belvo verifies that the payer owns the account and can access it, so you receive a payment method that is ready to debit. Every completed authorization generates a digital contract you can export.
It covers the ways businesses actually collect:
- Loans, where the payer authorizes repayment of capital, interest, and any late fees.
- Fixed subscriptions, at a set amount and cadence.
- Variable subscriptions such as utilities and telecom, where the charge changes each cycle.
- Single payments, for a one-time charge.
It also carries your logo!
How authorization stays secure
Authorizing a payment method is where trust has to hold. Belvo confirms that the payer owns the account and can access it before the method is validated, so a business starts debiting on a verified account. Every authorization produces an exportable digital contract, a record of exactly what each payer agreed to. Belvo is ISO 27001 certified and PCI DSS compliant, the same security standards behind the rest of its payments infrastructure.
Who it is for
Digital direct debit authorization is for lenders and recurring billers in Mexico, whether you already collect by direct debit or are just getting started.
If you already use direct debit and send consents today manually, by API, or by SFTP, it replaces that whole process with a single action your payers complete in seconds. And you don’t need to build your own authorization step.
If you are new to direct debit, you can start with digital authorization from day one, so your payers authorize from their very first payment, with no paperwork involved.
Want to give your customers a faster way to authorize direct debit? Talk to our team.
