PayNow

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Enable your customers to make purchases directly from their bank accounts using PayNow. PayNow (specifically, PayNow Corporate) helps your business receive secure and instant payments from buyers across Singapore. No need to fill out payment details; customers can simply scan your QR code for faster checkout.

This guide walks you through the payment flow and details on how to implement.

Supported PayNow Apps (Scan & Pay)

Omise PayNow QR solution supports nine participating banks (Bank of China, Citibank Singapore, DBS / POSB Bank, HSBC, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited, Maybank, OCBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, UOB).

Payers could use mobile banking apps from any of the participating banks, eg. DBS Paylah, UOB Mighty or OCBC PayAnyone to scan PayNow QR and pay.

How to enable

  • Supported Countries: Singapore
  • Minimum API version: 2017-11-02

To enable PayNow, send an email requesting this feature to support@omise.co. You will need to review and accept new terms and conditions.

Payment flow

Customers paying via PayNow go through an offline payment flow. This means that once the charge is created, it can only be authorized offline. In this case, the customer must scan the generated QR code using a banking app on their phone to complete the flow.

After the customer selects PayNow as their preferred payment method, your site should generate the PayNow QR code. The following screenshots demonstrate two flows: one using a desktop browser and one using a mobile browser. In both cases, once the QR code is visible, the customer must scan it to complete the payment.

Using a Desktop Browser

PayNow Desktop

To scan the QR code, the customer logs into their bank app on their mobile phone ❷. The customer scans the code using their bank app ❸. The customer confirms the purchase using the bank app ❹. Once you receive a webhook completion event, confirm the payment with the user ❺.

Using a Mobile Browser

PayNow Mobile

To scan the QR code, the customer takes a screenshot of the QR code ❶ and logs into their bank using their mobile phone ❷. The customer loads the screenshot containing the QR code using their bank app ❸. The customer confirms the purchase using the bank app ❹. Once you receive a webhook completion event, confirm the payment with the user ❺.

Implementation

To create a charge using PayNow, make the following API requests.

  1. Create a new payment source (type: paynow) using Omise.js or one of the mobile SDKs (iOS and Android)
  2. Create a new charge using the identifier of the source created in Step 1.
  3. After receiving the charge completion webhook event, retrieve the charge to verify its status (optional, but recommended).

Use your public key to create the PayNow source on the client (a customer's browser or mobile phone). Use your secret key to create the PayNow charge on the server.

If both the creation and charge of a source must happen server-side, you can create and charge the source in a single API request using your secret key.

Creating a source

When the customer confirms that they wish to pay with this payment method, create a new source specifying the amount, currency, and type.

The following examples demonstrate the creation of a new PayNow source for S$4,000. Replace the omise_public_key and $OMISE_PUBLIC_KEY variables with the test public key found on your dashboard.

Using Omise.js, the type parameter is supplied as the first argument to the createSource method.

Omise.setPublicKey(omise_public_key);

Omise.createSource('paynow', {
  "amount": 400000,
  "currency": "SGD"
}, function(statusCode, response) {
  console.log(response)
});

For testing, you can create the same request using curl.

curl https://api.omise.co/sources \
  -u $OMISE_PUBLIC_KEY: \
  -d "amount=400000" \
  -d "currency=SGD" \
  -d "type=paynow"

{
  "object": "source",
  "id": "src_test_5nvdpn7z6uaq5p4xmlo",
  "livemode": false,
  "location": "/sources/src_test_5nvdpn7z6uaq5p4xmlo",
  "amount": 400000,
  "barcode": null,
  "bank": null,
  "created_at": "2021-05-17T10:53:58Z",
  "currency": "SGD",
  "email": null,
  "flow": "offline",
  "installment_term": null,
  "name": null,
  "mobile_number": null,
  "phone_number": null,
  "scannable_code": null,
  "references": null,
  "store_id": null,
  "store_name": null,
  "terminal_id": null,
  "type": "paynow",
  "zero_interest_installments": null,
  "charge_status": "unknown",
  "receipt_amount": null,
  "discounts": []
}

The id attribute is the source identifier (begins with src).

Creating a charge

Create a charge specifying the parameters source, amount, and currency.

  • source specifies the source identifier.
  • amount and currency must match amount and currency of the source.

The following example demonstrates how to create a new charge using curl. Replace $OMISE_SECRET_KEY with your test secret key found on your dashboard. Replace $SOURCE_ID with the id of the source.

curl https://api.omise.co/charges \
  -u $OMISE_SECRET_KEY: \
  -d "amount=400000" \
  -d "currency=SGD" \
  -d "source=$SOURCE_ID"

{
  "object": "charge",
  "id": "chrg_test_5nvdpnapyle90ejudk8",
  "location": "/charges/chrg_test_5nvdpnapyle90ejudk8",
  "amount": 400000,
  "net": 396000,
  "fee": 4000,
  "fee_vat": 0,
  "interest": 0,
  "interest_vat": 0,
  "funding_amount": 400000,
  "refunded_amount": 0,
  "authorized": false,
  "capturable": false,
  "capture": true,
  "disputable": false,
  "livemode": false,
  "refundable": false,
  "reversed": false,
  "reversible": false,
  "voided": false,
  "paid": false,
  "expired": false,
  "platform_fee": {
    "fixed": null,
    "amount": null,
    "percentage": null
  },
  "currency": "SGD",
  "funding_currency": "SGD",
  "ip": null,
  "refunds": {
    "object": "list",
    "data": [],
    "limit": 20,
    "offset": 0,
    "total": 0,
    "location": "/charges/chrg_test_5nvdpnapyle90ejudk8/refunds",
    "order": "chronological",
    "from": "1970-01-01T00:00:00Z",
    "to": "2021-05-17T10:53:59Z"
  },
  "link": null,
  "description": null,
  "metadata": {},
  "card": null,
  "source": {
    "object": "source",
    "id": "src_test_5nvdpmzj1jcbhxx6f83",
    "livemode": false,
    "location": "/sources/src_test_5nvdpmzj1jcbhxx6f83",
    "amount": 400000,
    "barcode": null,
    "bank": null,
    "created_at": "2021-05-17T10:53:57Z",
    "currency": "SGD",
    "email": null,
    "flow": "offline",
    "installment_term": null,
    "name": null,
    "mobile_number": null,
    "phone_number": null,
    "scannable_code": {
      "object": "barcode",
      "type": "qr",
      "image": {
        "object": "document",
        "livemode": false,
        "id": "docu_test_5nvdpnc12jbp0hwy031",
        "deleted": false,
        "filename": "qrcode.png",
        "location": "/charges/chrg_test_5nvdpnapyle90ejudk8/documents/docu_test_5nvdpnc12jbp0hwy031",
        "download_uri": "https://api.omise.co/charges/chrg_test_5nvdpnapyle90ejudk8/documents/docu_test_5nvdpnc12jbp0hwy031/downloads/542F307C03299822",
        "created_at": "2021-05-17T10:53:59Z"
      }
    },
    "references": null,
    "store_id": null,
    "store_name": null,
    "terminal_id": null,
    "type": "paynow",
    "zero_interest_installments": null,
    "charge_status": "pending",
    "receipt_amount": null,
    "discounts": []
  },
  "schedule": null,
  "customer": null,
  "dispute": null,
  "transaction": null,
  "failure_code": null,
  "failure_message": null,
  "status": "pending",
  "authorize_uri": null,
  "return_uri": null,
  "created_at": "2021-05-17T10:53:59Z",
  "paid_at": null,
  "expires_at": "2021-05-24T10:53:59Z",
  "expired_at": null,
  "reversed_at": null,
  "zero_interest_installments": false,
  "branch": null,
  "terminal": null,
  "device": null
}

Setting the QR code to expire

By default, the QR code expires one hour after creation.

The QR code can also be set to expire at a specific time (e.g. 9pm at the day), or a certain period after creation (e.g. 5 mins after creation). Please contact support@omise.co to update the setting.

Currently, the expires_at attribute in the charge response does not reflect the true expiration time, and expiration time cannot be set via the API.

Creating a source and charge

Alternatively, you can create and charge a source in a single API request.

curl https://api.omise.co/charges \
  -u $OMISE_SECRET_KEY: \
  -d "amount=400000" \
  -d "currency=SGD" \
  -d "source[type]=paynow"

Completing the charge

At this point, you have created a new charge with its status set to pending. Other possible values for charge status are successful, failed, and expired.

The following sections detail how to authorize a charge, receive its completion webhook event, and update its status.

This sequence diagram shows the entire flow.

sequenceDiagram participant customer participant omise.js participant merchant participant api.omise.co participant offline provider customer->>omise.js: Send payment details for purchase omise.js->>api.omise.co: Request source using payment details api.omise.co-->>omise.js: Return source omise.js->>merchant: Merchant gets returned source merchant->>api.omise.co: Request charge using source and purchase details api.omise.co-xmerchant: Send "charge.create" webhook api.omise.co-->>merchant: Return charge customer->>offline provider: Provide payment or charge authorization at offline provider offline provider-->>api.omise.co: Return result of payment or charge authorization api.omise.co-xmerchant: Send "charge.complete" webhook merchant-xcustomer: Send charge result (e.g. via email)

Authorizing the charge

Present the customer with QR code generated at charge creation. To authorize the charge, the customer scans the QR code using their phone.

You can simulate the authorization phase in test mode. Go to the specific charge on the dashboard, click on Actions and manually mark the charge as Successful or Failed.

Find the QR code nested within the charge object as follows:

charge:
  source:
    scannable_code:
      image:
        download_uri: QR code image to present to the customer

{
  "object": "barcode",
  "type": "qr",
  "image": {
    "object": "document",
    "livemode": false,
    "id": "docu_test_5nvdpn2qlnr8guur829",
    "deleted": false,
    "filename": "qrcode.png",
    "location": "/charges/chrg_test_5nvdpn1juuj3mw15cae/documents/docu_test_5nvdpn2qlnr8guur829",
    "download_uri": "https://api.omise.co/charges/chrg_test_5nvdpn1juuj3mw15cae/documents/docu_test_5nvdpn2qlnr8guur829/downloads/4C183C85868E12A2",
    "created_at": "2021-05-17T10:53:58Z"
  }
}

Receiving the charge completion event

The best way for you to be notified of the completion of a charge is using webhook events. Set up a location on your server to receive webhook events, and add this location as a webhook endpoint on the dashboard.

Once a charge is completed, a POST request will be sent to this endpoint with the charge response embedded.

The key attribute for the event object contains charge.complete and the data attribute contains the charge object. See Events API for event object structure.

Checking the charge status

After receiving this event, retrieve the charge using its id and confirm that its status matches the status of the charge contained in the event.

If the value of status is successful, you got paid. If the value of status is failed, check the failure_code and failure_message in the charge object for an explanation.

Possible failure codes are listed below.

Failure Code Description
failed_processing General payment processing failure.
insufficient_balance Insufficient funds in the account or the payment method has reached its limit.
payment_cancelled Payment cancelled by payer.

Voids and refunds

PayNow charges can be partially or fully refunded within six months of the transaction date using the API.

Limits

  • Minimum: 100 (SGD1.00)
  • Maximum: 2000000 (SGD20,000.00)

The limit for a given transaction may be different depending on the payer's bank and e-banking security settings.

Next steps

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