Payment link purchase

General information

Payment link purchase is a payment type which uses an initial request to generate a web link that customers can click to make purchases that involve a one-time or recurring transfer of funds from the customer to the merchant. As a rule, payment link purchases are used for one-time payments with or without the authorisation hold. At the same time, if needed, payment link purchases can be used for registering COF purchases, while with certain payment methods payment links can be used for obtaining the customer's consent to registration of a COF purchase, without actual withdrawal of funds.

This payment type is useful when you need to accept online payments that are not attached to a certain time, physical POS, or online site. You can either have the ecommpay payment platform send payment link to the customer via email, or you can share it via any other delivery media, for example, messengers or social media.

Payment model

To create a payment link, you can send an invoice/create request to the Gate API or select the corresponding action in the Dashboard interface. When the payment platform receives the request, it creates an invoice operation that results in:

• generating the payment link,
• delivering it to your web service,
• sending it to the customer if it was specified in the request.

Depending on which interface was used to initiate the payment link creation, you can receive the created payment link in a callback sent to the web service or via Dashboard. The link is sent to the customer automatically via the payment platform if it was specifically indicated and the customer's email was provided. For this purpose, you can use parameters send_email and email in the request to the Gate API or the Send e-mail to the Customer toggle switch and the Customer e-mail field in Dashboard. Note that if the link is not intended to be sent via the payment platform and will be sent via the web service instead, the invoice operation is technically finalised after the payment link has been delivered to your web service.

Once the link has been created and delivered to the web service, but before the customer confirms the purchase, you can deactivate the payment link if necessary. To do so, you need to send an invoice/cancel request to the payment platform or use the Deactivate toggle switch in the list of payment links in Dashboard.

By clicking the payment link, your customers open Payment Page where they can enter their payment information and complete the purchase. Then, the payment is processed according to one of the following scenarios depending on the operation_type parameter value:

• Processing a purchase (details), with or without registration of a COF purchase   In this processing scenario, the payment platform creates a sale operation that eventually debits the customer's account.
• Placing an authorisation hold (details), with or without registration of a COF purchase   In this processing scenario, the payment platform creates an auth operation that results in authorisation hold of funds on customer account. Capturing the funds or cancelling the hold can be initiated in one of the following ways:
  • By request from the merchant's web service.
  • By the merchant employees that use Dashboard for this purpose.
  • By the payment platform after a timeout.
• Registering a COF purchase   In this processing scenario, the COF purchase is registered without the customer's funds deducted or held. The payment platform creates a contract_registration operation that results in a registered COF purchase.

For each of these scenarios that involve payment links, the payment platform may perform some auxiliary procedures, though no additional input from the web service is required because all operations are performed by Payment Page.

Refunds can be issued for all successful payments completed by using payment links if refunds are supported for the specific payment method and the payment processing scenario. To initiate a refund, you need to submit a refund request or select the corresponding action in the payment information tab in the Dashboard interface. For a refund within a card payment, depending on the refund time and amount and the payment instrument used for the payment, one of the following operations is initiated:

• reversal if the refund is initiated within the operation day regardless of the purchase amount for a Mastercard card and provided that the total purchase amount is refunded for a card of any other card network;
• refund if the refund is initiated for a card of any card network after operation day and regardless of the amount and within the operation day provided that a partial purchase amount is refunded for a card of all card networks except Mastercard.

The rest of this section describes any possible statuses of a payment link purchase and the related operations. More information about processing payment link purchases is provided in the Gate and Dashboard sections.

Payment statuses

The following table describes the statuses of a payment link purchase.

The statuses of the invoice operation

The following table describes the statuses of the invoice operation.

The statuses of the sale and auth operations

The following table describes the statuses for the sale and auth operations.

The statuses of the capture and cancel operations

The following table describes the statuses for the capture and cancel operations.

The statuses of the contract registration operation

The statuses of the reversal and refund operations

The reversal and refund operations use the same statuses as the capture and cancel operations.