Bancontact

Bancontact is the most popular online payment method in Belgium, with over 15 million cards in circulation. Customers use a Bancontact card or mobile app linked to a Belgian bank account to make online payments that are secure, guaranteed, and confirmed immediately.

In order to pay with Bancontact, customers are redirected to the Bancontact website or mobile app to authorize the payment and then return to your website where there is an immediate notification about the success or failure of the payment.


Payment type	Card
Markets	Belgium
Customer currencies	EUR
Processing currencies	EUR
Refunds	Yes

General flow

POST Request -> to /payment_preauthorize
<- Response (direct, synchronous) with status=0&errormessage=pending and redirect_url
Customer is redirected to redirect_url to complete payment
<- HTML response with status=0 (or decline) to return_url
<- Callback (asynchronous) with errorcode=0 to notification_url

Step 1. Make a transaction request

From your server, make a POST /payment_preauthorize request.

POST https://sandbox.payabl.com/pay/backoffice/payment_preauthorize

Include in request:

Parameter	Format	Description
`merchantid`	40 characters	Merchant identification number assigned during account creation
`orderid`	max. 40 characters	The field orderid is optional and exclusively for the merchants' convenience
`amount`	digits only, either no decimals or two decimal places (e.g. 8 or 8.50)	Transaction’s total amount that will be deducted from the customer
`currency`	3 characters. ISO 4217	The currency field contains the alpha-3 currency code for the transaction. Links to ISO
`payment_method`	`5`	payabl. Payment methods IDs
`signature`	40 characters	Signature Calculation2
`bankcountry`	2 characters. ISO 3166-1 alpha-2	Customer country. Supported countries: BE
`custom2`	`bcmc`	The name of payment method
`email`	max. 50 characters	Customer email. An RFC 822 compliant email address
`firstname`	max. 50 characters	First name of the customer
`lastname`	max. 50 characters	Last name of the customer
`url_return`	max. 255 characters starting with http or https	URL for customer redirection

You can see a full list of parameters in Pre-Authorization.

🚧
There is no real test environment for this following payment method. For this method, you need to use the tag “dumbdummy” to reach the simulator.

Request example:

merchantid=gateway_test&orderid=Payabl-Test&amount=19.99&currency=EUR&payment_method=5&language=en&customerip=2.22.75.244&
[email protected]&firstname=John&lastname=Doe&zip=4865&street=Touwslagerstraat&house=15&city=Lissewege&country=BEL&accountname=John Doe&
bankcountry=BE&custom2=bcmc&url_return=https://yourshop.example/thank_you&notification_url=https://yourshop.example/notification&
signature=f9a1240df3143d764c981959dea696e51d96209a

🚧
Public Sandbox information
Do not use your personal email address, Order ID with sensitive information, real customer details and credit card data in the public Sandbox. For email field you may use [email protected].

📘
Redirection to url_return does not confirm that the transaction is successful. Always check the transaction via notification_url or use the diagnose interface to get the final status of the transaction.

Step 2. Handle the redirect

To complete the payment, you need to redirect the customer to the correct URL in the response.

Response example:

transactionid=104581996&transid=104581996&status=0&errormessage=pending&errmsg=pending&amount=19.99&price=19.99&currency=EUR&
orderid=Payabl-Test&payment_method=5&fail_reason=&redirect_secret=BymDuckgAmNaMl58NB7LUecRvAE9SStJ&ppro_id=1145737884&payment_guarantee=&
redirect_url=https%3A%2F%2Fr3.girogate.de%2Fti%2Fsimbcmc%3Ftx%3D1145737884%26rs%3DTowuGIe8NengNRnO6LiPhOnofResKXDJ%26cs%3Dcb656
4773dbd667671d085716c436d1b0bebe477ec718eea59dea91c1debd43c&user_id=506800

Response fields reference:

Parameter	Description
`transactionid`	payabl. internal transaction id. Please use this transaction id when referring to the transaction in communications with the payabl. team
`transid`	The same as `transactionid`
`status`	Transaction error code
`errormessage`	Brief explanation of transaction decline reason (empty on success)
`errmsg`	The same as `errormessage`
`amount`	Transaction amount
`price`	The same as `amount`
`currency`	Transaction currency
`orderid`	Optional transaction identifier given by the merchant
`payment_method`	Payment method ID
`ppro_id`	Payment system's transaction id
`fail_reason`	Payment system's explanation of fail reason
`redirect_secret`	Signature for redirection to the payment system's iframe (no actions needed)
`redirect_url`	URL for customer redirection to finalize the payment (URL encoded)
`payment_guarantee`	Payment system technical field
`user_id`	Payment system user identifier

Step 3. Receive the final status

Once the customer completes the payment, we will send a notification with the transaction's final status to the notification_url specified by you.

🚧
Payment methods that are accessible under ID 5 have a callback structure different from other payment methods. Please note that payabl. transaction ID is not passed in them, so you will need to identify the transaction in question by the Order ID (which is passed in the TXID field).
Also, the notification signature for these payment methods is calculated differently from other payment methods. Please see the calculation steps below:

Sort all notification parameters values by parameter name in alphabetical order.

Append your secret to the end of the concatenated string.

Calculate a SHA-1 hex value of the string.

Notification example:

TAG=bcmc&TXID=Payabl-Test&PAYMENTGUARANTEE=NONE&REQUESTSTATUS=SUCCEEDED&HASH=9d87ff3569725ac85c61a013b054190c9d61cc3e&
STATUS=SUCCEEDED&ERRMSG=

Notification fields reference:

Parameter	Description
`TAG`	Payment method identifier
`PAYMENTGUARANTEE`	Payment system technical field
`REQUESTSTATUS`	Request status (technical field)
`STATUS`	Transaction status (`SUCCEEDED` for success)
`ERRMSG`	Brief explanation of transaction decline reason (empty on success)
`TXID`	payabl. order ID - optional transaction identifier given by the merchant
`HASH`	Signature to verify the authenticity of the notification. You can find more information here

📘
url_return and notification_url should be passed by you in the Pre-authorization request.
Alternatively, you can communicate a notification_url to be used by default to payabl. technical team. By doing so, you won't need to send it in every request.

Refunds

Bancontact supports refunds which can be initiated only on a successful captured transaction.
The request will send a credit note to the authorization system after the customer has already been charged. The refund amount will be credited to the customer and the merchant’s account will be charged.

The refund can be done in two ways:

Through API integration
Through payabl. dashboard

If you have API integration, you can check more in our documentation Refund.

Our Technical Support team is there to help you:
Email: [email protected]
Available Monday – Friday between 09:00 and 17:00 CET/CEST