New Delhi, June 16 -- Last week, I tried to cancel an e-mandate and found myself in a world of pain. As I recall, it was super easy to set up the standing instruction-all I had to do was provide my credit card information and a one-time password, and we were done. But when it came time to cancel it, it soon became apparent that this would be a project in itself.

To start with, my bank has created a separate website for customers who want to manage their e-mandates-one that is completely different from its online banking portal.

The fact that I have to go through more hoops to stop a recurring payment than to set one up is a problem to begin with, but what made it worse was that it required a password so hard to remember that I had to st...