If you onboarded your users in Essentials, the configurations described on this page are done automatically according to the setup you previously agreed on with your Adyen contact.
If you onboarded your users through Adyen's hosted onboarding page or chose the API onboarding option, you must configure and activate the created merchant accounts.
Step 1: Configure payment methods
For the initial setup or when your users want to offer a new payment method to their customers, they must contact you to add that payment method to their merchant account.
To request adding a payment method to your user's store, make a POST /paymentMethodSettings request with your user's merchant account in the path. In your request, specify:
| Parameter | Required | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| type |  |
Payment method . Some payment methods require an additional object with payment method details. | |
| businessLineId | |
The unique identifier of your user's business line that you want to request a payment method for. | |
| storeIds | The id of the store that you get when creating a store. |
||
| countries | The list of countries to enable with the payment method. To enable all countries supported by the payment method, set to ANY or send empty. | ||
| currencies | The list of currencies to enable with the payment method. To enable all currencies supported by the payment method, set to ANY or send empty. |
Some payment methods require additional parameters. Make sure to collect this information from your users before adding the payment method.
After a payment method is successfully added to the merchant account, you will receive a paymentMethod.created notification.
The following example shows the notification you receive after adding visa payment method to a merchant account.
Step 2 (Optional): Get the bank account details
If you collected your user's information through the hosted onboarding page, you must send an API request to query the ID of their transfer instrument. The transfer instrument resource is created automatically when your user enters their bank account details. You will need this ID to enable payouts for your user.
To get the ID of the transfer instrument, send a GET /legalEntities/{id} request, specifying the ID of the main legal entity in the path.
The response contains the transferInstruments.id resource.
Step 3: Enable payouts
Before you enable payouts, make sure that the sendToTransferInstrument capability is allowed for the merchant account. You can find this information in the merchant.updated webhook you receive after your user submits their verification data, or in the response for the GET /legalEntities/{id} request.
To enable payouts for your user, make a /merchants/{merchantId}/payoutSettings call with the merchant account's ID in the path, and specifying the following in the body of the request:
| Parameter | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| enabled | Set to true. | |
| enabledFromDate | The date when Adyen starts paying out to this bank account. | |
| transferInstrumentId | |
The unique identifier of the transfer instrument that contains the details of the bank account. |
Step 4: Activate merchant account
You can decide when to activate your user's merchant account depending on your onboarding flow. For the fastest process, request activation after you create the account and configure payment methods. Make a POST /merchants/{merchantId}/activate call, specifying the merchant account ID in the path.
The account is then activated when:
- Verification checks are completed and capabilities are allowed for the user.
- Adyen has added the required configurations to the account based on the data collected.
If you need to perform any additional internal processes or approvals, it is recommended that you wait to activate the merchant account after these are completed.
When you request the activation of your user's merchant account, the account has the status PreActive. Adyen then adds the required configurations. Note that this process can take several hours.
After the account is successfully activated, the account status changes to Active. You get the result of the activation asynchronously through a merchant.updated webhook. The user can then start processing payments.