Visa Instalments

Introduction

Visa Instalments extends the functionality of standard card payments with the implementation of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) approach. This approach can be used in various business industries and comes in handy when it is more convenient for customers to pay in fixed, equal parts over a defined period of time instead of a full amount outright. In particular, it is a useful option in tourist industry and luxury retail as it helps merchants to attract and retain new clients while building an efficient and profitable business.

Paying in instalments enabled by Visa is available for eligible Visa credit cards from participating card issuing banks that are signed up for VIS—Visa Instalments Solution. The ecommpay payment platform supports processing Visa Instalments using Payment Page, with the full payment amount credited to the merchant’s balance in one or two steps (i.e. with the authorisation hold as the first step). This functionality is available only to UK-based merchants.

This article provides information about working with the Visa Instalments functionality: general insights are presented in the Overview section, while information about the actions required to process payments and perform other actions is presented in the sections that follow.

General information

Special aspects and limitations

When working with the Visa Instalments functionality, consider the following special aspects and limitations:

• This functionality is available only to UK-based merchants.
• Only Visa credit cards from participating card issuers based in the United Kingdom and supporting Visa Instalments Solution are eligible.
• Customers paying for their purchases in instalments enabled by Visa must be notified that this is a type of credit with the purchase amount deducted from the existing available credit limit on the card and with the responsibility to repay the debt (according to the instalments plan selected). If the cardholder delays or misses a payment, the issuer can charge additional fees.
• Eligibility for instalments enabled by Visa is determined in each individual case by the card issuer.
• The functionality is supported for the 5th generation Payment Page and can be used for one-time one-step and two-step purchases, with the card details specified as is or in the form of saved data and tokens.
• When Visa Instalments purchase has been processed in the payment platform, together with the regular fee for processing a payment the merchant is charged an additional fee payable to Visa and ecommpay. To learn more about this or any other fees, refer to your ecommpay account manager.

If you have questions about limitations, conditions, and possible availability of this functionality in other geographic regions, contact your ecommpay account manager. If you have any technical questions, refer to the ecommpay support specialists.

Interaction diagram

Processing a payment using the Visa Instalments functionality involves the merchant's web service, the Payment Page interface, the ecommpay payment platform, and the technical facilities of the Visa Instalments Solution service and the issuing bank of the customer's card.

With Visa Instalments, the customer selects the instalments plan and agrees to pay fixed payments to the issuer according to the specified schedule. Note that the full purchase amount is held against the cardholder’s available credit limit at the time of purchase—on the terms of the instalments plan defined by the issuer. After the initial purchase is processed, the customer settles directly with the issuer.

In turn, the The merchant is paid the full amount (minus any applicable fees as in the case with other types of purchases) because this amount is paid by the issuer of the card used at the time of purchase.

Processing scenario

Below is a user scenario of the basic purchase made with the Visa Instalments functionality.

The scenario has the following steps:

1. A customer initiates a purchase in the web service.
2. The customer selects the payment method in the payment form and enters the card number.
3. The customer is shown Checking instalment eligibility—a notification that their eligibility for paying in instalments is being determined (because for the project in use the Visa Instalments capability is supported).
4. Once the eligibility has been determined, the customer is shown a corresponding notification. Then the customer enters the rest of the card details if necessary and proceeds to the next step.
5. The customer is shown available instalments plans, together with the option to pay for the purchase in full amount at once (without splitting it into parts).
6. The customer selects an instalments plan most fitting to their needs and proceeds to the next step. If at this step the customer requires additional information about Visa Instalments, they can use the Learn more link (clicking which opens a pop-up window with the option overview).
7. The customer reviews the instalments plan terms and conditions and accepts them by confirming the payment.
8. The customer is shown the preloader page and then the payment complete page.

When the payment has been processed, the information about the terms of the instalments plan is provided to the customer in the receipt (sent to the email or the phone). In addition to the data contained in a standard receipt, this receipt will contain:

• Number of instalments
• Total purchase amount with fees
• Total fees amount
• Applied annual percentage rate (APR)
• Monthly payment amount

General information

To process a purchase through Payment Page with the Visa Instalments functionality, the merchant's web service is required to send a request with all required parameters and signature to the ecommpay URL and receive a callback with the result. In case of a two-step purchase, it can be required, at a later point, to send the request for capturing the held funds. The full sequence and special aspects of one-step purchase processing are provided below.

In case of a two-step purchase, the process of placing the authorisation hold via Payment Page is identical to the workflow sequence of a one-step purchase, with the exception that instead of an immediate debiting of funds an authorisation hold is initiated and executed.

Information about the formats of requests and callbacks used for processing payments in instalments enabled by Visa via Payment Page is presented further in this section; general information about working with the Payment Page API is presented in Interaction concepts.

Request format

Since payments in instalments enabled by Visa essentially extend the functionality of standard card payments, the request format for such payments corresponds to the format used for standard card payments and follows the requirements and recommendations for parameters listed in the Purchase processing and Authorisation hold articles.

There are several things you need to consider when sending requests for opening Payment Page:

1. The following parameters required for any payment must be specified:

   • project_id—project identifier obtained from ecommpay during integration
   • payment_id—payment identifier unique within the project
   • payment_currency—payment currency code in the ISO-4217 alpha-3 format
   • payment_amount—payment amount in the smallest currency unit
   • customer_id—customer identifier unique within the project

   The following parameters required for any payment must be specified: project_id, payment_id, payment_currency, payment_amount, customer_id.

2. To specify the type of purchase that is different from the default one set for the specific project, pass sale (for immediate withdrawal of funds during one-step purchase processing) or auth (to place an authorisation hold during two-step purchase processing) in the operation_type parameter.
3. Additionally, it is recommended that you specify the postal code and customer's address in the avs_post_code and avs_street_address parameters. If either of these parameters is missing, the payment form may display input fields for entering the missing values (learn more in Checking with Address Verification Service and Submission of additional payment information).
4. Additionally, any other parameters available for working with Payment Page can be used (details).
5. After all necessary parameters are specified, generate a signature (details).

Thus, a correct request for opening the payment form using Visa Instalments must contain the project identifier, basic payment information (identifier, amount, and currency code), customer identifier, and signature, and can include other additional parameters if needed.

{
   "project_id": 120,
   "payment_id": "580",
   "payment_amount": 60000,
   "payment_currency": "GBP",
   "customer_id": "customer1",
   "signature": "kUi2x9dKHAVNU0FYldOcZzUCwX6R\/ekpZhkIQg=="
}

{
   "project_id": 120,
   "payment_id": "580",
   "payment_amount": 60000,
   "payment_currency": "GBP",
   "customer_id": "customer1",
   "signature": "kUi2x9dKHAVNU0FYldOcZzUCwX6R\/ekpZhkIQg=="
}

Callback format

The standard format of callbacks is used for delivering the result of processing the Visa Instalments purchase. For more information, see Handling callbacks (details).

Information about the instalments plan selected by the customer is specified in the installment_plan object passed in the final callback. Including this object in the callback payload is set up with the ecommpay support specialists.

{
    "installment_plan": {
        "payment_frequency": "M",
        "payment_count": 9,
        "cost": {
            "currency": "GBP",
            "total_cost": 60000,
            "total_fee_amount": 3825,
            "regular_payment": {
                "total_amount": 7092
            },
            "first_payment": {
                "total_amount": 7092
            },
            "last_payment": {
                "total_amount": 7089
            },
            "annual_percentage_rate": 8.5
        },
        "reference": "Y38135539",
        "terms_and_conditions": {
            "text": "text_eng",
            "url": "https://www.fornaxbank.co.uk"
        }
    }
}

Useful links

The following articles can be useful when implementing purchases via Payment Page:

• Interaction concepts—about the interaction with the payment platform by using Payment Page.
• Signature generation and verification—about the procedure of generating and verifying signatures in requests and callbacks.
• Payment processing—about the types, processing models, and possible statuses of supported payments and operations.
• Purchase processing—about processing one-time one-step purchases with immediate debiting of funds via Payment Page.
• Authorisation hold—about processing one-time two-step purchases with debiting of funds after placing an authorisation hold via Payment Page.
• Handling operation processing information—about error and response codes that are used in the payment platform to record information about performing of operations.