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Merchants

Swan account holders who are 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.

Pending review

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.

Profile & payment method statuses​

Profile statusExplanation
PendingReviewProfile or payment method request or update was submitted and is pending a review by Swan.

Next steps:
  • If the request or update doesn't meet requirements or is deemed risky by Swan, the status moves directly to Rejected.
  • Otherwise, the status moves to Enabled.
EnabledProfile or payment method is active.

  • Use Enabled merchant profiles to request payment methods and accept payments with activated payment methods.
  • Use Enabled payment methods to accept payments.
  • Updates to profiles and payment methods can only occur when they have the status Enabled.
SuspendedStatus 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.
RejectedFinal 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.
DisabledFinal 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
  • Accent color

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 is visible right away on your Dashboard.

Updating merchant profiles​

You can request a profile update with the API mutation requestMerchantProfileUpdate. If you use Swan's Web Banking interface, merchants can request an update through their app. Request an update for the merchant's name, website, product type, expected monthly payment volume, expected average basket, and logo.

Updating a merchant profile produces the following events:

  1. The merchant profile status doesn't change, remaining Enabled. The merchant continues to use their merchant profile with the existing information.
  2. The update status is PendingReview. Swan reviews the new information to ensure it meets requirements.
  3. After Swan reviews and validates the update request, the update status changes to Enabled and the update is published to the merchant profile.
  4. If Swan rejects the update request, the merchant profile remains Enabled, but with the existing information. The update isn't published.

If you requested an update and your update status is PendingReview, but you need to make another change, submit a new update request. Swan reviews both requests, but only the most recent is made public.

Subject to review

All update requests are reviewed by Swan according to the same risk guidelines as a new merchant profile.

Payment methods​

Your merchants can accept payments from their customers 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 card payments, SEPA Direct Debit, Internal Direct Debit, and French checks. You can request multiple methods in one API call.

Available payment methods​

Your merchants can request the following online payment methods to accept payments with Swan:

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 methodRolling reserveDefault amount
Cards✓ Yes100% over 5 business days
SEPA Direct Debit - Core✓ YesDetermined by a merchant profile risk assessment
SEPA Direct Debit - B2B✓ Yes100% over 3 business days
Internal Direct Debit - Standard✓ YesDetermined by a merchant profile risk assessment
Internal Direct Debit - B2B☒ Non/a
French checks✓ Yes100% over 10 interbank business days

Versions​

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.

Guides​