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Ratepay for API only

Add Ratepay to an existing API-only integration.

Accept Ratepay payments using our APIs, and build your own payment form to have full control over the look and feel of your checkout page.

When making a Ratepay payment, you need to capture the payment after the goods have been sent. This triggers the invoice to be sent to the shopper.

Requirements

Requirement Description
Integration type Make sure that you have an existing API-only integration.
Setup steps Before you begin, add in your test Customer Area.

Preparation

Implement Ratepay's device fingerprinting to collect the shopper's device fingerprint for risk evaluation.

Build your payment form for Ratepay

If you are using the /paymentMethods endpoint to show which payment methods are available to the shopper, in your request specify one of the following combinations of countryCode and amount.currency:

Country/region countryCode amount.currency
Austria AT EUR
Germany DE EUR
The Netherlands NL EUR
Switzerland CH CHF

The response indicates the available payment types:

  • paymentMethod.type: ratepay (Ratepay Open invoice) and ratepay_directdebit (Ratepay Direct debit). Note that Ratepay Direct debit is not available in Switzerland.

When the shopper selects a payment type, you will need to specify the corresponding paymentMethod.type value in your payment request.

We provide a Ratepay logo which you can use in your payment form. For more information, refer to Downloading logos.

Collect shopper details

To make a Ratepay payment, you also need to collect the following shopper details:

Name Description
firstName Shopper's first name.
lastName Shopper's last name.
dateOfBirth Shopper's date of birth.
telephoneNumber Shopper's phone number.
shopperEmail Shopper's email address.
billingAddress The address where to send the invoice.
deliveryAddress Only required if the delivery address is not the same as the billing address.

Calculate the device fingerprint

Before making a payment you need to implement Ratepay's device fingerprinting. Send the calculated device fingerprint when making a /payments request.

Make a payment

From your server, make a /payments request, specifying the following parameters:

The /payments response contains:

  • additionalData.openinvoicedata.descriptor: The purpose of the payment which you should print on the invoice. The shopper provides it when making a bank transfer, so Ratepay can match the payment to the transaction.
  • resultCode: Use this to present the payment result to your shopper.
  • pspReference: Our unique reference for the payment.
  • merchantReference: Your reference from the /payments request.

Present the payment result

Use the  resultCode that you received in the /payments response to present the payment result to your shopper.

The resultCode values you can receive for Ratepay are:

resultCode Description Action to take
Authorised The payment was successfully authorised. Inform the shopper that the payment was successful. You can also add a message, for example: Thank you for your order. Your purchase order number is XYZ.
After the goods have been sent, you also need to capture the payment.
Cancelled The shopper cancelled the payment. Ask the shopper whether they want to continue with the order, or ask them to select a different payment method.
Refused The payment was refused by Ratepay. Ask the shopper to try the payment again using a different payment method.

Capture the payment

This section only applies to Ratepay Open invoice.

After the goods have been sent, you also need to capture the payment. All Ratepay Open invoice payments must be manually captured, even if you have enabled automatic capture for other payment methods. Capturing the payment is what triggers the invoice to be sent to the shopper.

Partial captures

To partially capture a Ratepay Open invoice payment, specify in your /capture request:

  • modificationAmount: The amount that the shopper should pay. 
  • additionalData.openinvoicedata: Price and product information for the items that the shopper should pay for.

Although the field names are different, the information in additionalData.openinvoicedata is the same as what you provided in lineItems when making a /payments request:

openinvoicedata lineItems Description
itemAmount amountExcludingTax The price for one item, without the tax, in minor units.
itemVatAmount taxAmount The tax amount for one item, in minor units.
itemVatPercentage taxPercentage The tax percentage, in minor units.

The following example shows how to make a partial capture request if the shopper only kept one pair of socks from the two included in the original payment request.

Any unclaimed amount that is left after partially capturing a payment should be manually cancelled.

To set up multiple partial captures, contact our Support Team. Multiple partial captures will create a new invoice for each capture.

Refunds and cancellations

If a Ratepay payment has not yet been captured, you can cancel it. If the Ratepay payment has already been captured and you want to return the funds to the shopper, you need to refund it.

Partial refunds

To partially refund a Ratepay payment, specify in your /payments/{paymentPspReference}/refunds request:

  • modificationAmount: The amount to be refunded to the shopper.
  • additionalData.acquirerReference: The acquirerReference of the capture. This is needed if there are multiple partial captures available for the payment. When refunding in your Customer Area, you can add the acquirerReference manually as well.
  • (Only for Open invoice payments)additionalData.openinvoicedata: Price and product information about the returned items.

Although the field names are different, the information in additionalData.openinvoicedata is the same as what you provided in lineItems when making a /payments request:

openinvoicedata lineItems Description
itemAmount amountExcludingTax The price for one item, without the tax, in minor units.
itemVatAmount taxAmount The tax amount for one item, in minor units.
itemVatPercentage taxPercentage The tax percentage, in minor units.

The following example shows how to make a partial refund request if the shopper returned the shoes included in the original payment request.

Test and go live

Before you can accept live Ratepay payments, you need to submit a request for Ratepay in your live Customer Area, and provide us your Ratepay live credentials.

Ratepay provides detailed error codes as well as test data and recommendations on how to test some of the most common scenarios.

You can check the status of the test payments in your Customer Area > Transactions > Payments.

See also