Payments

Customer IP address and identifier are required for processing financial operations in the Orchid platform and needed for analysing the operations for fraud. That is why, if this data is omitted or incorrect, operations can be declined.Customer IP address and identifier are among the required parameters for performing financial operations within the Orchid payment platform. These parameters are necessary when operations are analysed for fraud. With this data omitted or incorrect, operations may be rejected, which results in a decreased conversion rate.

When specifying the first and last names of a customer and/or a cardholder, it is important to meet a number of conditions for forming requests, since these parameters are checked not only for correctness of the data format but also according to different rules including fraud prevention rules.Requests to the payment platform may require specifying the first and last names of a customer and/or a cardholder. These parameters are checked not only for correctness of the data format but also according to different rules including fraud prevention rules. Thus, it is important to meet a number of conditions for forming requests. For example, payment systems may check whether the customer's first and last names are specified correctly in accordance with their rules.

For correct processing of payments and preventing declines due to errors with first and last names specified, there are the following recommendations:

• Use real first and last names (for example, specifying CARDHOLDER NAME or Customer Name is incorrect).
• Make sure that each parameter contains at least 2 characters and, if possible, not more than 50 characters.
• It is possible to use letters, numbers, and other characters in the UTF-8 encoding.

The following additional restrictions apply to the card_holder parameter:

• It is possible to use Latin letters without diacritics, Cyrillic letters, periods in abbreviations, an apostrophe, hyphens in compound names:
  • Latin letters without diacritics;
  • Cyrillic letters;
  • periods in abbreviations (for example, Mr. or Jr.);
  • an apostrophe (for example, d'Arc or O'Hara);
  • hyphens in compound names (for example, Anna-Maria or Jean-Baptiste).
• Ensure that the value contains at least two words and no more than one period. For example, specifying Alexandre Dumas Jr. is possible, while Mr. Alexandre Dumas Jr. is incorrect.
• Ensure that there are no hyphens for abbreviations and contractions because hyphens are considered as word separators (or example, specifying M-r Holder is incorrect). For example, specifying M-r Holder is incorrect since this construction contains three words with two words consisting of a single letter.

If descriptions are provided in requests, they are used in callbacks, displayed in the Dashboard interface, and can be helpful for merchants in payment analysis.

Every financial operation entails the transfer of funds from a specific ‘source’ to a designated ‘recipient’ through a connecting ‘channel’. In case of the Orchid payment platform, these are defined as follows:

• The source and the recipient are the customer's payment instrument and the funds of the merchant's balance, respectively (for purchases, this correlation works as specified, while for refunds, it works in reverse).
• The payment channel is a combination of technical means and logical entities that facilitate the transfer of funds between the payment platform serving the merchant and the payment service serving the customer.

When the currency of the customer's payment instrument, the merchant's balance currency, and the payment channel currency are the same, financial operations can be processed without the need for conversion. However, when at least one of the currencies differs from the others, conversion becomes necessary to enable the transfer of funds through the channel in use.

The currency of the channel is considered the actual currency of the operation, also known as the operational or settlement currency (this can be important for payment accounting, payment analysis, and other related processes). Thus, the conversion process is structured as follows:

• If the currency of the customer's payment instrument differs from the settlement currency, then, to process a payment via the channel, conversion is performed on the side of the organisation that serves this payment instrument.
• If the currency of the merchant's balance differs from the settlement currency, then, to process a payment via the channel, conversion is performed on the Orchid side.

An example scenario would be a Polish customer making a payment in Norwegian krone (NOK) through a payment channel for a service in Norway, using a card denominated in Polish zloty (PLN), while the merchant's balance currency is the euro (EUR). In this case, the conversion from zloty to krone is performed on the issuer's side (at the rate and terms applied by them), and the conversion from krone to euro is performed on the Orchid side.

Additionally, there are scenarios where the initial currency of an operation, as specified in the request, is different from the channel currency. To handle such situations, the payment platform uses an algorithm where the initial amount is converted into the channel currency and the operation is subsequently processed with the converted amount in the channel currency (additional secondary conversions, as in the provided example, can be applied if relevant). Along with that, in the standard program callback about the operation processing, the initial amount and currency, submitted in the request, are specified as sum_initial, while the converted settlement amount and currency are specified as sum_converted.

In summary, currency conversion during the processing of financial operations is applied as an auxiliary procedure to adjust to the payment channels in use, both on the side of the customer and their payment service and on the side of the merchant and the Orchid payment platform.

In today's e-commerce landscape, abundant with various payment instruments, and currencies, currency conversion plays a crucial role in enabling seamless operation processing and service delivery. However, both customers and merchants are averse to incurring losses through fees and exchange rate differences during conversion.

To minimise the need for conversions and potential losses, merchants can adopt a comprehensive approach in this direction.

• Key to this strategy is analysing the audience and their payment preferences, including their geographical locations, favoured payment currencies, as well as their frequency of encountering currency conversions.
• Aligning the spectrum of payment channels with the audience's specifics and the merchant's business development goals is also essential. Collaborating with the Orchid account manager can help to optimise the structure of supported currencies, balances, and channels. This may involve setting default currencies for automatic conversions and implementing other advantageous solutions.
• Facing other issues or challenges related to conversion, you can also contact the Orchid specialists—we are always committed to delivering the best service and solving even the most unconventional problems.

The meaning of the term ‘refund’ in the payment platform. In the Orchid payment platform, a refund is an operation of reimbursing a customer for the amount withdrawn from their account for a purchase. In other words, if funds have been taken from a customer during the processing of a payment via the platform, you can make a refund via the platform to return the funds to the customer within the same purchase.

All of this is quite straightforward, but let us dig deeper to understand different aspects.

Insights into refunds. What you need to know to get a better understanding about working with refunds:

• Refunds can be full and partial (for returning either full or partial amount of the purchase).
  In the platform, it is possible to issue multiple refunds for a single purchase provided that the amount of each subsequent refund does not exceed the actual payment amount amount that was debited for a purchase and has not been returned to the customer yet with the previous refunds (this amount is called the actual payment amount).

• Refunds can be unavailable in some cases.
  

• Refunds can be issued with the use of different technical operations.
  Depending on the specifics of various payment systems, the technical operation for returning funds can be either reversal or refund. Normally, the reversal operation is used when a refund is made within the operation day on which the corresponding card payment has been processed and the refund operation is used in other cases.
  What can be done about it? Keep in mind that such aspects can be encountered and do not get alarmed when you come across different names of operations. Speaking of the operations' names, all refunds in the Dashboard interface are marked as refund operations (for the sake of simplicity). If you need to know what operation, reversal or refund, was actually used for a refund, use program callbacks and, if relevant, Data API.

For more detailed information, refer to the article Purchase refunds.

Ways to initiate refunds. On the merchant's side, refunds can be initiated via the Gate API and Dashboard.

When working via the Gate API, to initiate refunds, use the endpoints and formats described in the Purchase refunds article.

When working via Dashboard, use the tools for issuing single and mass refunds described in the corresponding article.

Finally, if you come across any other refund-related situations which are not covered in this answer or in the articles mentioned in this answer, you can contact your account manager and mutually search for best solutions, which you will surely find.

Overview

Occasionally, due to various circumstances, it may be necessary to reverse funds after transferring them as part of a refund or payout—for example, if the refund was made for the wrong purchase or if the payout was made for an excessive amount. The Orchid payment platform provides such capabilities for cancelling such actions, but only within the limitations imposed by providers and payment systems.

Conditions

• Refunds and payouts can be reversed only with consideration to any additional restrictions on payment instruments and other criteria.
  Additional information about such restrictions for card payments is provided in this answer.

• When considering time restrictions imposed by providers and payment systems, it is also necessary to consider the time required to reverse a refund or a payout on the Orchid side—typically, this process takes no more than thirty minutes.
  

• You can reverse only separate refund operations.
  The reversal operations can not be cancelled. Also, it is not possible to reverse several refund operations with partial refunds for a single purchase at once. Partial refunds, like full ones, can only be reversed individually.

• Refunds issued for card payments can be reversed only for cards of particular card networks, with consideration to the specified time limits:
  • for the American Express cards—within the time period relevant for a particular project (this period can be clarified with the Orchid account manager);
  • for the Mastercard cards—within 24 hours;
  • for the Visa cards—within 30 calendar days.
• Card payouts can be reversed only for Visa cards, within one calendar day, and only in exceptional cases established and regulated by the card network.

Reversal procedure

To reverse a refund or a payout, proceed as follows:

1. Find the identifier of the operation (operation_id) you need to reverse and inform the Orchid technical support specialists that a reversal is needed.
   To find the operation identifier, you can use the payment information tab in the Dashboard interface or a program callback with information about the operation completion. To contact technical support, you can use the Dashboard interface (with the function Create ticket to Support in the payment information tab).

2. Receive the confirmation that the reversal request has been registered on the Orchid side.
   Each request is automatically registered and assigned an identifier (ticket ID), which is communicated in the communication email and can be referenced for further inquiries about the request and its progress.

3. Receive a response regarding the outcome of your request.
   Processing such requests typically takes up to 30 minutes within which the Orchid support specialists perform the following:

   1. Verify that the target operation is eligible for a reversal according to the card network's rules.

   2. If the reversal eligibility is confirmed, perform the necessary actions.
      For reversing a refund—the refund_reversal operation is created and processed as part of the payment for which the refund was made, this operation is assigned the success status, while the payment is assigned the partially refunded or success status (depending on the actual payment amount that remains); the status of the refund operation being reversed remains unchanged, and the information about the created operation is displayed in the payment information tab in the Dashboard interface without being sent in program callbacks to the web service.
      For reversing a payout—this payout is assigned the decline status, with no additional operations created, the payment information is updated in the Dashboard interface, while the callback with information about the change of the payout status is sent to web service by prior agreement with the merchant.

   3. Communicate the result regarding the outcome of the reversal request.

4. If the target operation has been reversed, ensure the return of funds.
   After reversing a refund, the balance should increase by the refund amount minus the fee charged by Orchid for the reversal, while after reversing a payout, the balance should increase by the payout amount and the fee charged previously by Orchid for processing the payout.