Settlement Process
The payment is credited into the bank account of the merchant as per the settlement cycle predefined on the Merchant Account while its activation. The settlement cycle can vary from T+ 1 / 2 / 3 (T is the transaction date) depending upon various factors such as business model, high-risk ratio, merchant history, etc.
The process can be explained as below:
Authorization of Payment
There is an internal process in which AkontoPay sends the authentication request for the customer’s payment deduction from the customer’s bank and after the authorization is received from the bank the same amount is deducted and being retained by AkontoPay.
Once the bank has authorized the customer’s payment, it will be auto captured and verifies that purchase as complete by the merchant. Then no further action is needed from the merchant side.
Settlement
After the funds are captured by AkontoPay, it is settled according to the predefined settlement (payout) cycle (T + 1/2/3, where T is the Transaction Date) in the Merchant’s bank account. After the funds are credited in the Merchant’s Bank Account, they are marked as settled. About Nodal Bank – where your payment rests
As mentioned earlier, before routing the funds to the customer’s bank account, your payment is first routed to the payment gateway’s bank account known as the Nodal Account.
As per the RBI guidelines, the payment gateways and aggregators, need to maintain a Nodal Account. This is controlled and managed by the bank itself which means that the payment gateways or aggregators cannot use the funds in that bank account for any other purpose than to settle it to the respective merchant to whom the payments belong.
Thus, there is no question of the payment gateways earning any kind of interest on that amount which used to belong to the customer in passage to being paid to the merchant. Nodal Bank Account is just a passage or medium from where the merchant is paid after deducting the respective fees.
Anatomy of the Payment Processing
During this process, there could be various parties included in the background. In front, there are 3 parties only, Issuing Bank, Payment Gateway and the Merchant’s Bank. However, there are other parties too, such as card networks and processors, NPCI, etc depending upon the payment method used by the customer. Thus, at each additional stage, it requires its additional time and accordingly the delay in settlement.
EndNote
AkontoPay is committed to provide the ease of access and the best payment gateway service experience. The merchants, as well as their customers, are the top priority. We understand the importance of the payments and its resultant services to the customers, which directly or indirectly depends on the payment gateway process. Payment Gateway experience is equal to the reputation of the Merchant and AkontoPay aims to keep that up. You may contact the AkontoPay Customer Support now and get access to the best payment gateway services at the most cost-effective rate.
