If you're an average Indian smartphone user, you have somewhere between 4 and 12 active recurring payments running through your bank account right now. Some you remember (Netflix, your Spotify Family plan, the gym you used to go to, that mutual fund SIP). Many you don't (the OTT trial that converted to paid 9 months ago, the cloud storage your cousin signed you up for, the e-magazine subscription from pre-COVID).
Most personal finance apps don't help. They want you to log in to your bank account, hand over your Net Banking credentials, or "connect" via account aggregators that store your data on their servers. For a privacy-first scam protection app, that's a non-starter.
What v1.24.0 ships
The new Mandates tab (named after how Indian banks describe recurring authorizations) does four things:
- 📋 Detects every active subscription from your bank SMS — UPI AutoPay, e-mandates, standing instructions. Brand catalog covers 42+ Indian and global services on day one (Netflix, Spotify, Hotstar, Prime, Sony LIV, ZEE5, Adobe, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, mutual fund SIPs, insurance premiums, gym chains, etc.)
- 💰 Shows monthly + annual cost at a glance. Most users underestimate their annual subscription spend by 40–60%. Seeing the projected ₹ figure is the cancellation trigger.
- 🔍 Audits unused subscriptions — flags any that haven't debited in 35+ days. Forgotten free trials, cancelled cards that auto-fall-back to bank account, or services you stopped using but never cancelled.
- 📊 Detects category overlaps — spot the four streaming services you didn't realize you were paying for in parallel.
How it works (without selling your data)
When your bank sends one of these SMSes:
E-Mandate!
Rs.499.00 will be deducted on
12/06/26, 00:00:00
For Netflix mandate
UMN abc123@upi
Maintain Balance
-HDFC BankRakshaLink parses it on-device, recognizes Netflix, and adds a row to your Mandates tab with the amount, cycle, and next debit date. Same goes for "UPI AutoPay set up", "Standing instruction registered", "Auto-debit scheduled" formats from HDFC, ICICI, SBI, Axis, Kotak, YES Bank, and IndusInd.
The detection runs entirely on your phone. No SMS data is uploaded anywhere. No bank account is linked. You don't enter any login credentials. Same privacy posture as the rest of RakshaLink — your messages never leave your device.
What gets detected vs not
Subscriptions paid via UPI AutoPay or NACH e-mandates: detected automatically (this is the majority of Indian recurring payments now since RBI's e-mandate framework rolled out).
Subscriptions paid via card-on-file (older model where merchant stores your card details): often detected when the bank sends a charge notification, but with less reliable cycle inference. You can always add these manually with one tap.
Subscriptions paid in cash or via wallet top-ups: not detected (no bank SMS exists). You can add these manually if you want them in the same view.
Free vs Pro
Subscription detection itself is free for everyone. Here's what splits between tiers:
Read-only view of every detected subscription. Total monthly cost. Cancel-at-provider links. Manual add/edit. 8 Indian languages.
Pre-debit reminders 24h before each charge. Audit screen showing unused subscriptions with savings projections. Annual cost projection. Category overlap alerts. Family Protection. Full 90-day spending history.
The Pro tier exists because the reminders and audit features need a server-side notification scheduler (battery cost) and additional storage. The detection itself is genuinely free — we don't gate the core value behind a paywall.
Why this matters for scam protection
RakshaLink's core mission is protecting Indian users from financial scams. Subscription Tracker fits because:
1. Visibility = vigilance. When you can see every auto-debit in one place, an unauthorized one stands out. Scammers occasionally set up recurring debits via stolen card details — a clear "Mandates" view makes those visible.
2. Free trial scams. A common Indian scam: trick a victim into "free trial" of a fake streaming service that converts to paid recurring debit. Our pre-debit reminders give you a 24-hour window to cancel before money moves.
3. Ghost subscriptions are a slow leak. Most people aren't actively defrauded — they just lose money to services they forgot. ₹500/month over 5 years is ₹30,000. Our audit catches these automatically.
What's next
v1.24.0 ships May 25, 2026. After launch we're focusing on:
- Family Protection Pro (v1.25.0) — share subscription audits with family members so a parent's auto-debits are visible to a tech-savvy child.
- Pre-debit reminder customization — change the reminder window from 24h to anywhere between 1h and 7 days, set custom budget alerts.
- Hindi-first onboarding — the existing 8-language support extends to ASO and discovery for non-English Play Store searches.
- Cancellation deep-links — one-tap "Open Netflix to cancel" / "Open Spotify to cancel" links so the cancellation friction matches the signup friction.
Get v1.24.0
Update RakshaLink from the Play Store after May 25. The new Mandates tab will appear automatically. On first open, RakshaLink scans your last 90 days of bank SMS to populate the list — usually completes within 30 seconds.
If you don't see your subscriptions detected after 30 seconds, your bank may use an SMS format we haven't trained on yet. You can add subscriptions manually, and we'll improve detection coverage in the next update based on what's missing.
