SOFORT Banking

What it is

SOFORT Banking is a popular payment method available in a few European countries and very popular in Germany. SOFORT Banking directly integrates with the customer’s bank, allowing easy payments. This payment method is similar to a (direct) bank transfer, with the main difference that the customer only needs to verify the payment, reducing this way other risks associated with traditional transfers.

SOFORT Banking is supported in the following countries within your MultiSafepay Control:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Germany
  
• Italy
• Spain
• Switzerland
• Poland.

Payment type	Payment flow	Countries	Currencies	Refund options	Recurring	Chargebacks
Bank	Direct/Redirect	AT, BE, DE, IT, ES, CH, PL	EUR	Full/Partial	Yes	No

How it works

A customer chooses to pay with SOFORT Banking, authenticates their account, and confirms to pay.

• Once a payment is completed, the payout is guaranteed and cannot be reversed by the customer.

Supported currencies

SOFORT Banking only supports the Euro (EUR).

The MultiSafepay integration of SOFORT does not support British Pounds (GBP), Swiss Francs (CHF) and Polish Zloty (PLN).

Transaction flow

The transaction flow shows the different ways a transaction can be processed. This differs per payment method.

• Order status
  The order status indicates the status of the order, such as completed, pending or rejected. The order status is independent of the incoming or outgoing payment of the transaction.

• Transaction status
  The transaction status indicates the payment status of the transaction, such as completed, pending or rejected. Once the transaction status is completed, the amount of the transaction is added to your MultiSafepay balance.

Order Status	Transaction Status	Description
Initialized	Initialized	A payment link has been generated, but no payment has been received yet.
Completed	Completed	A successful SOFORT Banking transaction has been received and the funds will be added to your MultiSafepay Control balance.
Declined	Declined	Transaction has been rejected
Expired	Expired	An unfinished transaction will automatically expire after a predefined period.
Uncleared	Uncleared	Payment has not yet been received by MultiSafepay. The Uncleared status may take up to 3 business days to be cleared. This applies for all payments regardless of the amount. Do not ship items during this period. MultiSafepay will not take any responsibility for this.
Void	Cancelled	Transaction has been cancelled.

Refund flow

Order Status	Transaction Status	Description
Reserved	Reserved	A refund has been requested.
Completed	Completed	Refund has been successfully processed.

The full API reference for SOFORT Banking can be found here

Product Rules

Some rules may apply to certain payment methods. For SOFORT Banking, the following rules apply:

• Refunding more than the stated amount of the original transaction is possible with SOFORT Banking. More information is available on our refund more than original amount page

• Successful SOFORT Banking transactions have no expiring date regarding refunding, as long as the receiving bank is able to process the refund

• The lifetime of a payment link can be adjusted. This might be beneficial for your inventory. The adjustment can be processed through the days or seconds active. Full documentation can be found on our lifetime of a payment link FAQ page.

• Minimum amount for SOFORT transactions must be € 0,10 EUR.

• Transactions must be processed in the countries listed in the beginning of this page, otherwise a 1024 error will be returned upon completion of payment.

Activate

SOFORT Banking is a standard payment method.

SOFORT Banking can be activated in your MultiSafepay Control under settings > payment methods.

Enable SOFORT Banking as payment method in your ecommerce platform to finalize the activation.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact one of our account managers at [email protected]

Request refund

Please follow these steps to refund a SOFORT Banking transaction:

1. Log in to your MultiSafepay Control
2. Select transaction > transaction
3. Find the transaction through search
4. Open transaction
5. Select refund
6. Fill in the amount that you want to refund to the customer
7. Confirm.

Please note that by default, MultiSafepay does not allow for you to refund more than the stated amount of the original transaction. Please refer to the product rules for more information.

The transaction status is now initialized. As long as the transaction status is marked as initialized, the refund can be cancelled. When the transaction status is marked as completed, the refund is processed correctly. The customer will receive the refund to the bank account number in which the transaction was originally paid to, within the next business day.

A refund will only be processed if your balance on your MultiSafepay Control is positive.

In the event of a failed SOFORT Banking refund, please contact our support team at [email protected] to assist you.

Testing

For more information about the possibilities of testing with SOFORT Banking, please refer to our test payment details