New 60-day dispute rule - a shift in South Africa's debit order rules

SOUTH Africa's payments industry is initiating a change that will align the various debit order services rules on dispute availability.

- PIETER BRAND

THE dispute windows for all debit order instruments will be standardised at 60 days. This will simplify disputability, especially for service providers using multiple collection instruments. | FILE

The South African Reserve Bank and the Financial Sector Conduct Authority has confirmed that, effective 13 April 2026, the dispute windows for all debit order instruments will be standardised at 60 days. This will simplify disputability, especially for service providers using multiple collection instruments.

Prior to this, the rules governing how long a consumer could dispute a debit order varied across different collection instruments. In some cases, consumers had up to a year to challenge a transaction, triggering a costly, manual process between the debtor, the debtor's bank, the service provider’s bank, and ultimately the service provider to prove the validity of the mandate.

The creditor would need to locate the original mandate and submit evidence to defend the collection, a process that was both time-consuming and expensive, with the outcome depending on the creditor's ability to match the mandate to the disputed transaction.

Under the new rules, no debit order can be disputed more than 60 days after it was processed. Within that 60-day window, disputes will be fully automated, meaning they are processed without giving the service provider an opportunity to present a defence. The previous automated window was 40 days - this change extends the consumer's ability to dispute without intervention by 50%.