Payments Canada requirements for pre-authorized debits

As a pre-authorized debit issuing company, you must comply with the new Payments Canada requirements if you wish to offer your customers direct withdrawal services.

Applicable rules

Responsibilities and obligations with regard to pre-authorized debits are described in Payment Canada's Rule H1 – Pre-Authorized Debits (PADs) (PDF, 447 KB) -  and in the AccèsD Affaires Enrollment Agreement. Please read the information in this section and contact an AccèsD Affaires advisor at 1-888-233-2473 to update your direct withdrawal service file (pre-authorized debit).

2 mandatory documents

AccèsD Affaires Enrollment Agreement

You must sign the AccèsD Affaires Enrollment Agreement, which contains the terms and conditions of the direct withdrawal (pre-authorized debit) service.

You can get this agreement from an AccèsD Affaires advisor or at your caisse when you sign up for the service.

Payor's PAD Agreement

You'll have to prepare and implement a Payor's PAD Agreement for your customers.

This is a form, commonly called Direct Withdrawal Authorization, that your customers must fill out to authorize a pre-authorized payment or debit from their account.

This Agreement must contain the mandatory provisions required under Rule H1.

Learn more

Terminological equivalence

The following table shows certain equivalencies between the terms used in Desjardins documentation and those used by Payments Canada.

Terms used by Desjardins Terms used in the Payments Canada Rule H1
PAD issuing company or PAD issuing organization Billers or Payee (of PAD)
AccèsD Affaires Enrollment Agreement Payee Letter of Undertaking
Desjardins caisse, Fédération des caisses Desjardins du Québec and AccèsD Affaires Sponsor member (financial institution member of Payments Canada that sponsors a payee)
Financial institution that holds the payor's account processing institution Processing member (financial institution member of Payments Canada that processes the PAD)