Merchant
Understand the merchant user type and how they might use Swan
To use the Merchant Payment Collection feature, you need to complete a risk review first. To get started, contact your dedicated Technical Account Manager, or send an email to [email protected].
A merchant profile is a collection of business, risk, and support information that fulfils two primary requirements: (1) to approve the account holder as a merchant, and (2) to operate Swan’s Merchant Payment Collection services.
The merchant profile contains information such as business details, a description of the business activity, a link to the merchant’s website, projected volumes, a support phone number, and more.
A merchant profile is required of all Swan account holders wanting to collect third-party funds using the Swan Merchant Payment Collection feature. If you want to collect third-party funds, you must have at least one merchant profile
The merchant profile is created with the status
PendingReview, and the profile is visible right away on your Dashboard.All merchant profiles are reviewed by Swan. We might contact you for more information before accepting or rejecting the new merchant profile.
- Swan changes the status for accepted merchant profiles from
PendingReviewtoEnabled. - Swan changes the status of unaccepted profiles to
Rejected. The decision is final and cannot be challenged. - Swan might suspend or cancel a merchant profile.
- There are various situations that can lead to the suspension or cancellation of a merchant profile, the most notable being risk-related, such as fraud.
- Merchant profiles with the status
Suspendedcannot be used. - The status
Canceled, like the statusRejected, is final.
Merchant payment methods are the payment methods a merchant uses to accept payment from their clients. Merchant payment methods are connected to a merchant profile. A single merchant profile can have multiple payment methods, and multiple payment methods can be requested at the same time.
To use the Swan Merchant Payment Collection feature, there must be at least one merchant profile and at least one merchant payment method, both with the status
Enabled.Swan offers the following payment methods for merchant payment collection:
- Internal Direct Debit
- French checks (debtor bank must be located in France; API only)
Swan creates a new version of your payment method each time a change is requested. Only one version of a payment method can have the status
Enabled.Similarly, only one version of a payment method can have the status
PendingReview. However, the statuses Disabled, Canceled, and Rejected can be assigned to unlimited versions of each payment method.You do not need to change the status of the
Enabled or PendingReview product payment before running a request with the API. We handle this automatically on our end.All payment methods are reviewed by Swan. We might contact you for more information before accepting or rejecting the payment method.
- Swan might change a payment method status to
Suspendedif an API request is made that conflicts with status and versioning rules. - After completing a review of an existing payment method, Swan can reinstate the payment method by changing the status back to to
Enabled. - Swan changes the status from
PendingRevieworSuspendedtoRejectedwhen the payment method is rejected or no longer acceptable.
A payment mandate is required for direct debit. Before being allowed to collect payments, you'll need a mandate for each debtor. Please refer to the dedicated payment mandates page for more information.
The merchant rolling reserve is expressed as a percentage over a period of time (example: 10% over 30 interbank business days), which is applied to all funds collected through the Swan Merchant Payment Collection feature.
Payment method | Rolling reserve applied? | Reserve amount |
|---|---|---|
Standard Internal Direct Debit | ✅ | Determined by a merchant profile risk assessment |
B2B Internal Direct Debit | ❌ No | n/a |
French checks | ✅ | By default, 100% over 10 interbank business days |
The reserved amount is not part of the
available account balance and can't be used for the specified period of time.Days are measured in interbank business days (IBBD).
Time is expressed with the 24-hour clock.
Internal Direct Debit transactions are booked at 18:00 CET/CEST on the settlement date.
The settlement date is one day after (D+1) initiating the debit if:
- Transactions are sent before 11:30 for B2B transactions.
- Transactions are sent before 10:30 for standard transactions.
Checks received by the check provider by 09:00 CET/CEST should be processed the same day.
Last modified 16d ago