Merchants
Swan account holders who have been approved to accept payments from their customers using Swan.
Overview​
With a merchant profile and at least one active merchant payment method, you can help your merchants accept payments with Swan.
Before accepting payments, you and your merchant need to complete a risk review. To get started, contact your dedicated Technical Account Manager, or send an email to integration@swan.io.
Managing risk​
Accepting payments from customers comes with risk, and Swan prioritizes a risk-based approach.
That's why Swan reviews all requests for merchant profiles, profile updates, and payment methods. You might be contacted for more information before Swan accepts or rejects the request.
To manage potential risk, if suspicious activity is detected, Swan can change the status of both profiles and payment methods to Suspended or Rejected.
Swan can also reinstate a profile or payment method by changing the status to Enabled.
Finally, if Swan assigns the status Rejected to a profile or payment method, the decision is final and can't be reversed.
Statuses​
| Profile status | Explanation |
|---|---|
PendingReview | Profile or payment method request was submitted and is pending a review by Swan. Next steps:
|
Enabled | Profile or payment method is active.
|
Suspended | Status assigned by Swan when the merchant's use of their profile or payment method needs to be reviewed. The status can't return to Enabled without a review. |
Rejected | Final status assigned by Swan when Swan decides the risk of this profile or the risk of this payment method for the associated merchant is too high, or for some other risk-related reason. |
Disabled | Final status set by you using the requestMerchantPaymentMethods mutation. |
Merchant profiles​
A merchant profile is a collection of business, risk, and support information that fulfills two primary requirements: approve the account holder as a merchant, and facilitate accepting payments with Swan.
The merchant profile contains the following information:
- Business details
- Description of the business activity
- Link to the merchant's website
- Projected volumes
- Logo (optional), displayed online and on mandate PDFs
You can request a profile update with the API mutation requestMerchantProfileUpdate, and merchants can request an update through your web banking interface.
You can request an update to the merchant's name, website, product type, expected monthly payment volume, expected average basket, and logo.
A merchant profile is required of all Swan account holders wanting to accept payments from customers. If you want to accept payments from customers, 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.
Payment methods​
Your merchants can accept payments from their clients using any of several merchant payment methods.
Merchant payment methods are connected to a merchant profile, and a single merchant profile can have multiple payment methods.
To accept payments with Swan, there must be an Enabled merchant profile and at least one Enabled merchant payment method.
To learn how to request payment methods, refer to the request payment method guides for SEPA Direct Debit, Internal Direct Debit, and French checks. You could also request multiple methods in one API call.
Available payment methods​
Your merchants can request the following payment methods to accept payments with Swan:
- Internal Direct Debit (B2B and Standard)
- SEPA Direct Debit (B2B and Core)
- French checks (API only; debtor's bank must be located in France)
Rolling reserve​
Rolling reserve is a policy Swan applies to merchant transactions to protect the merchant and Swan against various risk factors, primarily insufficient funds and attempted fraud. The reserved amount acts as a safety net to cover potential loss for both Swan and the merchant.
Rolling reserve is expressed as a percentage over a period of time (example: 10% of the payment amount over 30 business days), and applies to most payment methods used by merchants to accept payments with Swan.
For the indicated period of time, the amount isn't part of the merchant's available account balance, after which the funds are released to the merchant and can be used.
Rolling reserve is held in a non-interest bearing reserve for transparency between Swan and merchants, therefore reducing the risk of a conflict of interest between the two parties.
| Payment method | Rolling reserve | Default amount |
|---|---|---|
| Internal Direct Debit - Standard | ✓ Yes | Determined by a merchant profile risk assessment |
| Internal Direct Debit - B2B | ☒ No | n/a |
| SEPA Direct Debit - Core | ✓ Yes | 15% over 15 business days |
| SEPA Direct Debit - B2B | ✓ Yes | 100% over 3 business days |
| French checks | ✓ Yes | 100% over 10 interbank business days |
Versions and statuses​
Swan creates a new version of your payment method every time an update is approved.
Only one version of a payment method can have the status Enabled.
Swan manages the statuses for Enabled or PendingReview payment methods automatically.
Therefore, you don't need to change the status before calling the API.