Direct debit service user number

[Mdonnelly14]

Can anyone advise me on how to obtain a service user number to take direct debits.

I’ve looked at the gocardless and smart debit options but not interested in paying ridiculous fees

Thanks

[mattnovak]

You’ll need a sponsor bank, or a third party - try a company called bottom line

[quinny100]

The process of obtaining a Service User Number is actually pretty onerous - the whole DD process is tightly regulated and you to prove compliance right down to submitting copies of the various notification letters you will use to communicate with your customers for approval.

They will also want to see some sort of system in place for the generation of your data files that you'll send to the bank with appropriate checks and balances in place - so unless your line of business systems have support for DD built in you might struggle here.

Having been through the process whilst doing some work for a Local Authority to collect 7 figures a month which was sponsored by the existing bank with whom they already had other service user numbers and so I expect we got an easier ride, it's no surprise most small companies use a third party.

Last private company I was at did £60m turnover, a fair bit of which was on DD and even they used a third party.

[anonymous-user]

GoCardless is cheap as chips and easy to use.