How to deactivate a direct debit mandate

When a borrower has an active direct debit mandate on your platform, Lendsqr uses it to pull repayments automatically on scheduled dates. This keeps your collections running without manual effort. But there are situations where you need to pause that automatic collection temporarily, without ending the mandate entirely.

Deactivating a mandate is how you do that. It puts repayment collection on hold. The mandate stays on the borrower’s profile, and you can reactivate it when the pause no longer applies.

This guide explains what mandate deactivation means, when lenders use it, how it differs from cancellation, and how to carry out the deactivation from the Lendsqr admin console.

What does deactivating a mandate mean?

A direct debit mandate is an authorisation a borrower grants, allowing your platform to debit their bank account for loan repayments. Once active, Lendsqr uses this mandate to trigger collections on the dates in the repayment schedule.

Deactivating a mandate suspends that authorisation. Lendsqr stops attempting to debit the borrower’s account through that mandate. The mandate record remains intact, but based on live testing (see below), the current admin console does not offer a way to reactivate it afterward.

This is different from cancelling a mandate. Cancellation ends the mandate permanently and the mandate detail page reflects that clearly with a “cancelled” status. Deactivation was designed as the reversible alternative to cancellation, but that reversibility could not be confirmed live in the current console. Treat both as effectively permanent until this is resolved.

Deactivate is not exclusive to NIBSS EASYPAY mandates. It was found live on both a NIBSS EASYPAY mandate and a Paystack-processed one, and it does not appear on every mandate of either type: some Active or Successful mandates show Cancel in their Actions menu instead of Deactivate. Check the specific mandate you are working with rather than assuming based on how it was created.

When lenders deactivate a mandate

Mandate deactivation is a practical tool in several lending scenarios.

• Loan restructuring: A borrower’s repayment terms change, such as an extended tenure or a revised schedule. You deactivate the existing mandate to stop collections under the old schedule. Once the new schedule takes effect, you reactivate or replace the mandate.

• Active dispute or complaint: A borrower raises a dispute about a charge or a loan balance. While your team investigates, you deactivate the mandate to avoid further debits that could escalate the complaint.

• Temporary financial hardship: A borrower contacts your team to report a short-term income disruption. You agree to pause repayments for a defined period. Deactivating the mandate gives you operational control over that pause.

• Failed or incorrect mandate setup: You discover that a mandate carries an amount that no longer matches the borrower’s current loan obligation. You deactivate it while you sort out the correction, then reactivate once the mandate details are aligned.

In each of these cases, deactivation protects both the borrower’s experience and your relationship with them. It prevents failed debits and the fees that often follow, and it gives your team time to resolve the underlying issue before collections resume.

How to deactivate a direct debit mandate on Lendsqr

Deactivate is only offered on some mandates, not all of them. Whether it appears depends on the specific mandate, not simply its provider: some NIBSS EASYPAY and some Paystack-processed mandates show it, while other mandates with the same provider and an Active or Successful status show Cancel instead. Open the mandate to check what is actually available before assuming Deactivate will be there.

1. Log in to the Lendsqr admin console. In the left navigation, under Customers, expand Customer management and select Direct Debits.

2. Locate the mandate you want to deactivate and click it to open its detail page. Click the ⋮ (Actions) icon at the top right.
3. If a Deactivate option is present, select it. If the menu shows Cancel instead, that mandate does not support deactivation on this console; cancelling it is permanent, so see How to cancel a direct debit mandate before proceeding.

4. A confirmation dialog appears: “Are you sure you want to deactivate this mandate?” Click Confirm to proceed, or Cancel in the dialog to back out.

The mandate status updates immediately, changing to Successful. Lendsqr will not attempt any further scheduled debits through that mandate.

There is currently no way to reactivate a deactivated mandate

This is a correction to what this article previously said. Deactivating a mandate was tested live on two mandates, a Paystack-processed one and a NIBSS EASYPAY one, and in both cases the result was the same: the status changes to Successful, and the Actions menu drops to showing only Trigger debit. No Activate button, or any other reversal control, appeared on the mandate detail page afterward, on the Direct Debits list, or anywhere else checked in the admin console.

In other words, deactivating a mandate currently behaves as a one-way action from the admin console, not the reversible pause the rest of this article describes. If you need repayment collection to resume after deactivating a mandate by mistake, or once a temporary pause should end, the deactivated mandate itself does not offer a path back. Set up a new mandate for the borrower instead (see Creating a direct debit mandate), or contact [email protected] if you believe this is a bug and need the original mandate restored.

Because of this, treat Deactivate as effectively permanent when deciding whether to use it. If you are unsure whether you will need the mandate again, it is safer to leave it active and address the underlying issue (a dispute, a hardship request, a mismatched amount) through your own process rather than deactivating it, until this behavior is confirmed or fixed.

What happens to repayments during deactivation

When a mandate is deactivated, Lendsqr does not attempt to collect repayments through it. Any repayment dates that fall during the deactivation period will not trigger a debit.

This means the borrower’s loan balance does not reduce during that time unless you record repayments through another method. If the borrower makes manual payments or pays through a different channel, you can record those separately. See Recording loan repayment from external sources for how to do this.

Deactivating a mandate does not alter the loan schedule itself. The repayment dates stay the same. Only the automatic collection through that mandate stops.

Learn more

To understand the full mandate lifecycle on Lendsqr, read Payments with direct debit and Understanding mandate statuses. If you need to end a mandate permanently rather than pause it, see How to cancel a direct debit mandate. To set up a new mandate for a borrower, see Creating a direct debit mandate. For guidance on how to trigger a manual collection through an active mandate, see How to trigger debits on a mandate.

For broader context on how direct debit improves loan collections for lenders, read Are you still chasing payments? Direct debit can turn your loan collections around on the Lendsqr blog.