Recurring payments

Boost conversion and manage subscriptions using tokenization.

Recurring payments is a MultiSafepay solution that securely stores payment details to enable quick, easy repeat payments.

How it works

  • One-click payments: The customer selects stored details for faster checkout.
  • Subscriptions: You use the token to collect payments at specific intervals, e.g. weekly, monthly.
  • Unscheduled payments: You use the token for event-triggered payments, e.g. mobile top-up when no credit left on phone.

MultiSafepay encrypts customers' sensitive payment details during an initial payment for secure storage, and provides you with a non-sensitive identifier for the details known as a "token". Customers can save multiple tokens.

Subsequent payments are exempt from SCA and 2FA.
MultiSafepay is responsible for PCI DSS compliant storage of payment details.

Tokens are stored at account level rather than site level. If you operate multiple sites from a single MultiSafepay account, you can also offer cross-domain recurring payments, i.e. tokenize a customer's details on Site A and offer one-click payments on Site B.

Supported payment methods

For both initial and subsequent payments:

  • Cards: American Express, Maestro, Mastercard, and Visa
  • Direct debit – First you need to provide us with some information.
    See Direct debit – Activation.

For initial payments then subsequent payments via direct debit:

❗️ Note: For subsequent payments to be successful via direct debit, ensure that direct debit is activated in your MultiSafepay account.

✅  Tip: Test every payment method flow you intend to use.

Initial payment

  1. The customer gives you consent to store their payment details and verifies their identity with 3D Secure.
  2. MultiSafepay encrypts the payment details during processing and stores them securely on our servers. We return to you a non-sensitive token that references the encrypted payment details.
  3. You can use the token to process recurring payments without needing to handle or store sensitive payment details.

Sequence diagram for request to tokenize cardholder data

Zero Authorization

Optionally, you can set the amount for the initial payment 0. No funds are transferred but a token is created (if the payment details are valid).

See Zero Authorization.

Subsequent payments: Customer-initiated

  1. You display the customer's available tokens at checkout, e.g. MASTERCARD **43.
  2. The customer selects a token and confirms payment. They don't need to re-provide any payment details or pass 3D Secure authentication again.
  3. You include the token in the request to MultiSafepay.
  4. MultiSafepay decrypts the payment details and processes the payment.

This is also known as "one-click payment".

Sequence diagram for customer-initiated recurring payments

Subsequent payments: Merchant-initiated

There are two common use cases for merchant-initiated subsequent payments:

  • Subscriptions
  • Unscheduled payments

  1. The customer must give consent (once only).
  2. You include the token in the request to MultiSafepay.
  3. MultiSafepay decrypts the payment details and processes the payment.

Sequence diagram for merchant-initiated recurring payments

Activation

Email a request to activate recurring payments to [email protected]

Specify in your request which tokenization model(s) you want to use:

  • One-click payments
  • Subscriptions
  • Unscheduled payments

We send you an agreement to sign, including terms and conditions for data usage.

Integration

Payment component

Our payment components support recurring payments.

To enable them, see payment component:

Recurring models

MultiSafepay offers three recurring models:

  • cardOnFile (one-click payments)
  • subscription
  • unscheduled (event-triggered)

Our API and PHP SDK support all three models.
Our ready-made integrations use cardOnFile only.

Ready-made integrations

You must have both card payments and recurring payments enabled for your MultiSafepay account.

Supported integrations

We support recurring payments in our plugins for:

API

See API reference – Create order > customer.reference.

📘 Note: Tokens for direct debits are originally received as iDEAL or Sofort transactions.

Additional parameters
ParameterTypeDescription
typestringThe payment flow for the checkout process. Options: direct, redirect.
gatewaystringThe unique gateway_id to redirect the customer to the specific payment method. Make a get gateway request. {{< br >}} Options: AMEX, VISA, MASTERCARD, DIRDEB.
recurring_idstringA randomly generated recurring ID for the customer.
referencestringThe customer's reference number for the token.
recurring_modelstringThe type of recurring model to use. Options: unscheduled, cardOnFile, subscription.


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Support

Email [email protected]

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