Bancontact
Accept Bancontact payments in your online store.
Bancontact is the most widely used payment system in Belgium, allowing customers to make payments through Bancontact cards or a mobile app linked to a Belgian bank account. Use the emerchantpay Bancontact API to accept Bancontact as a payment method across all of emerchantpay’s payment integrations.
| Payment method | Countries/regions | Supported payments |
|---|---|---|
| Real time bank transfer | Belgium | Online banking |
Prerequisites
To proceed with this solution, you must have an emerchantpay merchant account. Apply for a merchant account by filling out and submitting this contact form.
You will be assigned an emerchantpay Account Manager, who will provide you with credentials and assist you with any of emerchantpay’s payment solutions.
To integrate with Bancontact, connect to the emerchantpay Genesis gateway using the emerchantpay Bancontact API. You should have a working knowledge of web programming languages, HTTP methods in XML and JSON formats, and UTF8 encoding. Use the Genesis SDK libraries with code samples to integrate with the gateway in a range of languages.
For a solution that requires less development overhead, accept Bancontact payments through the emerchantpay Web Payment Form (WPF). Contact your Account Manager and tell them you want to accept Bancontact through the WPF, and refer to the WPF API.
1. Create a Bancontact payment request
To submit a payment using Bancontact, create a payment request to the emerchantpay Genesis payment gateway. Specify online_banking as the transaction_type and BCT as the bank_code.
Example of passing a Bancontact transaction request:
<payment_transaction>
<transaction_type>online_banking</transaction_type>
<transaction_id>119643250547501c79d8295</transaction_id>
<usage>40208 concert tickets</usage>
<remote_ip>245.253.2.12</remote_ip>
<notification_url>https://www.example.com/notification</notification_url>
<return_success_url>http://www.example.com/success</return_success_url>
<return_failure_url>http://www.example.com/failure</return_failure_url>
<amount>500</amount>
<currency>EUR</currency>
<customer_email>travis@example.com</customer_email>
<bank_code>BCT</bank_code>
<consumer_reference>Consumer Reference</consumer_reference>
<billing_address>
<first_name>John</first_name>
<last_name>Smith</last_name>
<address1>Muster Str. 12</address1>
<city>Brussels</city>
<country>BE</country>
</billing_address>
</payment_transaction>’ 2. Receive a response
You will receive a Success or Error response to your payment request.
Example of a Success response:
<payment_response>
<transaction_type>online_banking</transaction_type>
<status>pending_async</status>
<mode>live</mode>
<transaction_id>119643250547501c79d8295</transaction_id>
<unique_id>44177a21403427eb96664a6d7e5d5d48</unique_id>
<technical_message>Transaction successful!</technical_message>
<message>Transaction successful!</message>
<redirect_url>https://staging.gate.emerchantpay.net/redirect/to_acquirer/649e1ff35c61</redirect_url>
<timestamp>2023-03-06T16:33:07Z</timestamp>
<descriptor>Descriptor one</descriptor>
<amount>500</amount>
<currency>EUR</currency>
<sent_to_acquirer>true</sent_to_acquirer>
<bank_code>BCT</bank_code>
<payment_type>online_banking</payment_type>
</payment_response>
Asynchronous notification
Because the Bancontact payment transaction is asynchronous, the result of your customer’s payment is sent as a separate HTTP POST notification from the gateway to the notification_url that you supplied with the transaction request.
Example of a notification for a Bancontact transaction:
?transaction_id=ir_s2s_eur1680778975
&terminal_token=9b4c7d034097d36812648db23f419d28246523a8
&unique_id=6bddf6b318eb35fefd9c7dee85123fa4
&transaction_type=online_banking
&status=approved
&signature=985ff56028325d3ccbf4af221acf8ad3f1683028&amount=500status field provides you with information on the outcome of the transaction. See Transaction States for more information about transaction statuses.
Use the signature field to verify that the notification has been sent by the Genesis gateway. Each session signature is generated by combining the unique_id of the transaction and your API password, and generating a SHA-1 hash function of the combined string.
signature = SHA-1 hash value of <unique_id><API password>
| unique_id | API password | signature |
|---|---|---|
| 26aa150ee68b1b2d6758a0e6c44fce4c | 50fd87e65eb415f42fb5af4c9cf497662e00b785 | c5219b3d385e74496b2b48a549 |
| 3f760162ef57a829011e5e2379b3fa17 | 50fd87e65eb415f42fb5af4c9cf497662e00b785 | 14519d0db2f7f8f407efccc9b099 |
After you have verified the notification state and validity, render an XML page containing the transaction’s unique id to acknowledge that you have received the notification.
Example of a notification reply you use to confirm a notification:<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<notification_echo>
<unique_id>3f760162ef57a829011e5e2379b3fa17</unique_id>
</notification_echo>3. Test your integration
Before you can accept live payments, you must test your integration in the emerchantpay staging environment.
- Add an item to your cart in your online store.
- Proceed to the checkout page and check out using Bancontact.
- Follow the redirect link in the response.
- In the payment simulator, follow the instructions to simulate a transaction.
- Complete the order and verify that you are redirected to the order confirmation page.
- Log in to Genesis.
- In the navigation menu, go to Payment transactions.
- Verify that the transaction appears at the top of the list and is successful.
4. Accept live payments
After you have successfully tested your Bancontact integration, you are ready to move to the production environment and accept live payments. Contact your emerchantpay Account Manager to get your login credentials for the Genesis production environment.
You are now ready to accept live payments using Bancontact.