In South Africa we have stop orders and debit orders. Stop orders are for an amount agreed in advance. Debit orders allow the payee to debit your account for whatever amount they choose, obviously with the proviso that they have to produce evidence that you agreed to this, and that they can justify the charge. I've heard some stories about people having issues with unscrupulous payees abusing this, but I believe that's rare. I, for example, pay for my mortgage, credit card, cellphone, satellite TV, etc. via debit order.