Payment methods

Learn about various features of payment methods and the transactions they support.

Unzer allows you to accept payments both online and in physical shop. Below you will find details on the supported online payment methods, their features and ways to integrate them in your online shop.

Payment flow

This is a way to classify payment methods from the user experience perspective.

There are two possible scenarios: in the first one, the transaction is completed without the customer leaving your (merchant) website. Payment details are collected from the customer and submitted to Unzer by you. Examples of such payment methods are: Unzer Direct Debit and Unzer Invoice. In the second scenario, after collecting payment details from the customer, you redirect them to an external website on which they need to verify/complete the payment. These payment methods are called redirect payment methods. Examples of such payment methods are: Card, PayPal, Sofort.

In case of Unzer Invoice (including Unzer Invoice Secured and Unzer Prepayment), the actual payment (customer transferring the money) happens out of your online checkout but the buying—contract closing is done without the customer leaving your website.

Payment features

On top of the essentials like Refund, Reversal, and Subscription, selected payment methods provided by Unzer enable you to better support B2B transactions (through Pay later feature), insure your payments (through Secured feature).

Unzer Secured

Unzer Secured payment methods guarantee that you (merchant) receive the money for the sold goods or services, no matter if the customer pays or not. We assume the entire customer default risk.

Pay later

Payment methods with Pay later feature allow your customers to pay on account (Unzer Invoice) or in installments (Unzer Installment). In case of Unzer Invoice and Unzer Installment you are also guaranteed to receive the money no matter if the customer pays or not.

Subscription (recurring)

Payment methods supporting subscriptions allow you to store customer payment details and automatically debit their account in regular intervals. Irregular automatic debits are also supported - this could be used for automatic top-ups of paid services, for example.

One-click payment (recurring)

This feature allows you to store customer payment details during the first purchase and provide them during subsequent check-outs, making the experience faster and more convenient for returning customers.

Payout

Payout feature allows you to credit the customer account directly, without any reference to previous transactions. Some use cases include payouts for lottery wins, insurance payments, and online gaming.

Refund

When the customer returns full or parts of the order, you need to return the appropriate amount to their account. This is called refund. This is the most basic payment feature supported by all payment methods.

Reversal

When the customer cancels an order that has not yet been charged (captured), for example when the goods were ordered but not yet shipped or service ordered and not yet delivered, you should cancel the initial authorization - this is called reversal.

Chargeback

Payment methods supporting chargeback enable the customer to request their issuing bank for the return of funds whenever there’s a dispute over a refund between you and the customer or if there is a fraudulent use of the customers card or account and the issuing bank is charging the amount back.

Supported payment methods matrix

Payment method	Available for customers in	Currencies	Redirect	Refund	Reversal	Chargeback	Recurring	Payout	Pay later	Unzer Secured
Alipay	All countries	EUR, GBP, USD, CAD, AUD, HKD, SGD
Apple Pay	All countries	All
Bancontact	Belgium	EUR
Card	All countries	All	-
EPS	Austria	EUR
[Deprecated] Giropay	Germany	EUR
Google Pay	All countries	All
iDEAL	Netherlands	EUR
Klarna	Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden	EUR, SEK, DKK, NOK
Paypal	International (All countries)	All major currencies					*
PayU	Czech Republic, Poland	CZK, PLN
PostFinance card	Switzerland	CHF
PostFinance eFinance	Switzerland	CHF
Przelewy24	Poland	EUR, PLN
Sofort	Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Switzerland	EUR, CHF
TWINT	Switzerland	CHF
Unzer Direct Debit (Direct Debit)	Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lichtenstein, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain	EUR
Direct Debit Secured	Austria, Germany	EUR
Unzer Installment	Austria, Germany, Switzerland	EUR, CHF
Unzer Invoice	Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands	EUR, CHF
Unzer Prepayment	Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lichtenstein, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain	EUR
WeChat Pay	All countries	EUR, GBP, USD, CAD, AUD, HKD, SGD

*with approval from PayPal

Supported booking modes for various payment methods

Based on the payment flow, the following booking modes are avaiable for the payment methods:

• Some payment methods support both authorize or charge, this means that you can define if you want to charge after authorization or directly charge the payment, for example, cards or PayPal.
• Some payment methods support only charge booking mode, this means that the payment is charged when the customer completes the payment, for example, Alipay.
• Some payment methods support only authorize booking mode, this means that you will have to perform an authorize transaction before you can charge the payment, for example Unzer Invoice, Unzer Installment, Direct Debit Secured, or Klarna.

Payment method	Authorize	Charge
Alipay
Apple Pay
Bancontact
Card
EPS
Google Pay
iDEAL
Klarna
PayPal
PayU
Przelewy24
PostFinance card
PostFinance eFinance
Sofort
TWINT
Unzer Direct Debit
Direct Debit Secured
Unzer Installment
Unzer Invoice
Unzer Prepayment
WeChat Pay

Supported Unzer API transactions

Below you can see an overview from the Unzer API perspective - how the payment methods are referred to (payment type and the prefix), and what transaction types they support. For more information on each transaction type, go to the relevant server-side integration documentation page: Manage API resources (direct API calls), Manage API resources (PHP SDK), Manage API resources (Java SDK).

Payment method	Payment type	Prefix	Authorize	Charge	Cancel authorize	Cancel charge	Shipment
Alipay	/types/Alipay	ali
Apple Pay	/types/ApplePay	apl
Bancontact	/types/bancontact	bct
Card	/types/card	crd
EPS	/types/eps	eps
[Deprecated] Giropay	/types/giropay	gro
Google Pay	/types/card	gop
iDEAL	/types/ideal	idl
Klarna	/types/klarna	kla
PayPal	/types/paypal	ppl
PayU	/types/payu	pyu
Przelewy24	/types/przelewy24	p24
PostFinance card	/types/post-finance-card	pfc
PostFinance eFinance	/types/post-finance-efinance	pfe
Sofort	/types/sofort	sft
TWINT	/types/twint	twt
Unzer Direct Debit (Direct Debit)	/types/sepa-direct-debit	sdd
Direct Debit Secured	/types/paylater-direct-debit	pdd
Unzer Installment	/types/paylater-installment	pit
Unzer Invoice	/types/paylater-invoice	piv
Unzer Prepayment	/types/prepayment	ppy		automatically
WeChat Pay	/types/WeChatPay	wcp

Deprecated payment methods

The following payment methods are now deprecated:

Payment method	Available for customers in	Currencies	Redirect	Refund	Reversal	Chargeback	Recurring	Payout	Pay later	Unzer Secured
Unzer Direct Debit Secured	Austria, Germany	EUR
Unzer Invoice	Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lichtenstein, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain	EUR
Unzer Invoice Secured	Austria, Germany	EUR
Unzer Installment	Austria, Germany	EUR

Supported transactions matrix for the deprecated payment methods

Payment method	Payment type	Prefix	Authorize	Charge	Cancel authorize	Cancel charge	Shipment
Unzer Direct Debit Secured	/types/sepa-direct-debit-secured	dds
Unzer Invoice	/types/invoice	ivc		automatically
Unzer Invoice Secured	/types/invoice-secured	ivs		automatically
Unzer Installment	/types/installment-secured	ins		automatically

Integration options

You can integrate online payments in your checkout using: plugins for popular eCommerce shopping solutions, ready-made Payment pages and UI components provided by Unzer, and the Pay by link feature. You can also build your own payment formand connect it to Unzer API. Learn more about online payments integration.

See also

Payment use cases