Discover Student Loans
Discover Student Loans

Automatic Payments & Auto Debit Reward Terms and Conditions

Sign up and receive a lower interest rate while enrolled

When you have your monthly payments automatically deducted from your checking or savings account, you receive a 0.25% interest rate reduction. To enroll, log in to your account or call us at 1-800-STUDENT.

Automatic Payments Terms and Conditions

These Terms and Conditions describe the eligibility and policies for automatic payments. “You” refers to the customer. “We” refers to Discover Bank®, its affiliates and subsidiaries. “Automatic payments” refers to ongoing monthly payments that are automatically withdrawn from your bank account.

To enroll in automatic payments:

  • Visit DiscoverStudentLoans.com to log in to your account.
  • Call us at 1-800-STUDENT (788-3368) to enroll.

Your enrollment will be at the account level and will include all loans on your monthly billing statement for that account. Any future Discover® student or parent loans that are added to the account will also be covered by your enrollment.

You should continue to send monthly payments until you receive written confirmation (email or US mail) that your enrollment was successful.

We will take monthly automatic payments, as you have authorized, at the Auto Debit Amount and Auto Debit Date stated on your monthly billing statement. We may transfer your automatic payment authorization to our agent, successor, or assignee.

Automatic payments will continue to be withdrawn each month regardless if you make additional payments during the month.

Automatic payments will be canceled for any of the following reasons:

  • Two consecutive payments are returned due to insufficient funds.
  • A payment is returned for any reason other than insufficient funds.
  • Any loan in your account becomes 60 or more days delinquent.
  • Any loan in the account is on a hardship forbearance.
  • Automatic payment instructions are set up to pay only the minimum payment due when all loans are in a status or program that does not require a payment. Some examples include:
    • In-school or grace status
    • Deferment
    • Early Repayment Assistance Program
    • Post Military Deferment Grace

If you are paying from an external bank account and your Auto Debit Date lands on a weekend day or bank holiday, it will be presented to your bank on the next business day. The transaction will be dated to be effective as of the Auto Debit Date.

If you are paying with an internal transfer from a Discover bank account and your Auto Debit Date lands on a weekend day or bank holiday, your payment will be effective on the Auto Debit Date and will be processed as early as the Auto Debit Date, even if that day is not a business day.

You can cancel automatic payments until 5:00 p.m. ET on your Auto Debit Date. You can edit automatic payments until 5:00 p.m. ET on your Auto Debit Date if your Auto Debit Date is a processing day or until 5:00 p.m. ET on the prior processing day if your Auto Debit Date is a non-processing day. Processing days are Sunday through Friday and Saturdays (when it is the first or last day of the month). All other Saturdays are considered non-processing days. Cancel or edit your payments online or by calling us at 1-800-STUDENT.

For loans with in-school repayment options that are in grace or in-school deferment and moving into repayment, we will not withdraw the Auto Debit Amount as stated on the billing statement if the loans move into repayment on or before the Auto Debit Date. The Auto Debit Amount will be reduced to exclude the monthly payment amounts for the loans that moved from grace or in-school deferment into repayment.

Canceling your automatic payments will also cancel the Auto Debit Reward.

Other Important Information Regarding Automatic Payments

When enrolling in automatic payments, you can authorize the monthly payment to be equal to either the “Minimum Payment Due” or the “Minimum Payment Due plus an Additional Amount.”

“Minimum Payment Due” is the minimum monthly installment amount and can be enrolled for in-school repayment options (fixed and interest only) and during the standard repayment period.

“Minimum Payment Due plus an Additional Amount” is the minimum monthly installment amount plus an additional fixed amount for which you can set-up enrollment during in-school, deferment, grace, and repayment periods. Only the additional fixed amount will be debited when there is no required minimum monthly installment payment. When your loans move into repayment from in-school, grace (including Post Military Deferment), deferment, forbearance, disaster relief, or Early Repayment Assistance program, or when a new loan is added to your account, your Minimum Payment Due plus the Additional Amount will be debited. We reserve the right to cancel your Additional Amount at any time.

If an action on your account reduces your Auto Debit Amount prior to your next statement generation date, we may withdraw the reduced amount. One example of such an action includes but is not limited to paying off one of the loans in your account when you still have a remaining active loan.

When the account balance is less than your Auto Debit Amount shown on your statement, we may adjust the Auto Debit Amount to debit the outstanding balance. In the event of an overpayment, we will return funds according to our credit balance refund policy.

Auto Debit Reward (ADR) Terms and Conditions

Receive a lower interest rate while enrolled in automatic payments.

These Terms and Conditions describe the eligibility and policies for the Auto Debit Reward. “You” refers to the customer. “We” refers to Discover Bank, its affiliates and subsidiaries. “Automatic payments” refers to ongoing monthly payments that are automatically withdrawn from your bank account.

Auto Debit Reward Eligibility

You will be eligible to receive the Auto Debit Reward if you meet all of the following conditions:

  • You are the borrower or cosigner of a student loan or the borrower of a parent loan originated or purchased by Discover Bank.
  • You are enrolled in automatic payments for your Discover Student Loan account.
  • All loans in the account must be current. You are not eligible for the Auto Debit Reward if you have loans in forbearance, delinquency and/or default or charge-off statuses. Existing automatic payment enrollments will be canceled if loans in the account enter those statuses.

You will not be eligible to receive the Auto Debit Reward based on the following conditions:

  • Your automatic payments are canceled.
  • Your automatic payment amount is $0 (excluding disaster relief programs).

Auto Debit Reward Amount

We will apply the Auto Debit Reward by reducing your interest rate by 0.25% (0.0025). This may change the amount of your minimum monthly payment, may change the total number of payments necessary to pay off your loan and may change the amount of your final payment. It is your responsibility to notify us if you believe the Auto Debit Reward has not been applied correctly. Your Auto Debit Reward cannot be doubled, even if the borrower and cosigner are both enrolled in Automatic Payments.

Changes to Terms and Conditions of Automatic Payments and Auto Debit Rewards

The Terms and Conditions have been updated effective May 2024. These Terms and Conditions are subject to change without notice. We may change them at any time including, but not limited to, changing the eligibility criteria, or imposing additional conditions.

We reserve the right to cancel your automatic payments or Auto Debit Rewards at any time.

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