Product Update—Open Banking, New Acquirers, PayPal Upgrades & More

Brace yourself for a fresh batch of updates! We’ve been hard at work and are excited to bring you some seriously cool enhancements to make your payment game smoother, more flexible, and rock-solid secure. From expanded European payment options with Open Banking, Valitor, and TrustPay to sharper fraud alerts, upgraded subscription management, and smarter dispute handling, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.

Let’s jump into it!

Accept real-time bank payments in Europe with Open Banking

We’re excited to introduce Open Banking, a game-changer for real-time account-to-account payments across Europe! This new payment method allows your customers to make direct bank payments straight from the checkout page, boosting both the speed and convenience of European transactions.

Key benefits:

• Seamless checkout experience: customers can complete payments directly from their bank accounts without the need for cards, ensuring a smooth, fast, and user-friendly checkout experience.
• Lower transaction fees: unlike traditional payment methods, Open Banking reduces the need for intermediaries, leading to lower transaction fees. This makes it a cost-effective option for businesses of all sizes.
• Real-time payments: funds are transferred swiftly, giving you faster access to your money.
• Standardized system: Open Banking integrates domestic real-time payment systems and provides a unified access point, allowing merchants to facilitate fast, direct bank payments.

To enable Open Banking, visit our API documentation or reach out to your account manager.

Expand European coverage with Valitor and TrustPay

Welcome new acquirers in our portfolio: Valitor and TrustPay. Both providers support e-commerce payments and subscriptions, with Valitor also offering popular wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay.

With these providers in your payment orchestration mix, you can process European transactions more smoothly and expand your reach across different regions.

You can easily integrate both providers by contacting your dedicated account manager.

Optimize transaction management with PayPal Routing

Optimize your PayPal transactions with our new PayPal Routing feature! This tool allows you to seamlessly split initial payments between different PayPal sub-accounts based on the customer’s location.

Key benefits:

• Efficient account management: Balance turnover across multiple sub-accounts.
• Risk mitigation: Spread payments to reduce the risk of exceeding limits on any single account.

Reach out to your account manager to learn more about how PayPal Routing can enhance your payment strategy!

Tailor customer bank statements with PayPal Soft-Descriptors

We are thrilled to introduce PayPal Soft-Descriptors—a feature that allows you to customize the text that appears on your customers’ bank statements after a PayPal transaction. This feature makes it easier for customers to recognize their in-app or website purchases, improving clarity and reducing disputes.

Format:

You can configure the dynamic part of the descriptor to reflect the specific nature of each transaction.

Example:

Don’t hesitate to contact your account manager for more details on setting this up.

Simplify coupon management with bulk import and generation

Elevate your subscription management today! We’re excited to introduce new options for creating coupon codes in your Solidgate HUB. With our bulk generation and import feature, you can now create up to 1,000 codes at once, streamlining your promotional efforts!

You can create your coupon codes manually or simply upload existing codes into the HUB. This simplifies managing large campaigns and offering discounts across multiple customer segments.

How to get started:

• Go to the “Subscriptions” section in your Solidgate HUB and click “Coupons”
• Choose between generating a coupon code manually or simply uploading one.

For more step-by-step instructions, visit our documentation.

Offer flexible subscription pauses with new options

Give your customers more flexibility and control over their subscriptions with an enhanced Subscription Pause feature! Whether they want to pause their subscription temporarily or indefinitely, you now have more options to offer.

New features:

• Immediate pause: you can now allow customers to pause their subscriptions instantly by using the “immediate” option in the request. No more manual date and time calculations! 
• Endless pause: if a customer is unsure when they will resume their subscription, you can offer an indefinite pause option. This gives customers peace of mind while ensuring they don’t cancel entirely.

For more detailed instructions, check out our documentation.

Streamline subscription management with better Restore Functionality

To further streamline your subscription management, we’ve made some enhancements to the Subscription Restore endpoint. 

Key improvements:

• Additional validation and double-charges prevention: Ensure that a subscription can’t be restored if there are active subscriptions for the same customer and product, avoiding double charges and improving the user experience.
• Performance boost: We’ve fixed minor issues to optimize the endpoint for better speed and reliability.

For more details on how to use the improved restore functionality, visit our documentation.

Stay ahead of PayPal chargebacks with Solidgate Alerts

One more way to reduce chargebacks is now live! We are excited to present you with Solidgate pre-chargeback alerts for PayPal – a tool that will make your dispute management a lot easier!

Key benefits:

• Less external chargebacks on PayPal: prevent more chargebacks and avoid getting into the Schemes Monitoring Programs thanks to a more streamlined dispute resolution. 
• Higher customer satisfaction: resolve disputes more quickly and efficiently, fostering long-term relationships with your customers.
• Automated dispute handling: reduce manual workload and costs associated with resolving disputes.

Automatic matching of dispute alerts to orders is coming soon. Stay tuned for updates!

Track legal entities in financial reports with ease

Tracking your financials has become easier with our new update to the Fin API. Now, you can see the legal entity associated with each financial record directly in the API, giving you better visibility and control over your reporting.

Key benefit: This enhancement is beneficial for generating tax reports, conducting financial analytics, and managing internal audits. Now, all the information you need is available at a glance, making reporting faster and more efficient.

You’ll find more details in our documentation.

Get accurate Fraud Alerts with better notifications

Keep risks in check with more accurate Fraud Alerts! To improve the consistency of data provided in our Fraud Alerts, we’ve fixed the issues related to currency conversion and the fraud_type field.

This update ensures you always receive the most accurate and reliable fraud information, allowing you to act quickly when needed.

Optimize settlement periods with improved Settle Interval handling

We have enhanced settlement processing on the Solidgate platform. With this update, we ensure that your settlement period aligns with the maximum settlement period offered by your Payment Service Provider (PSP), preventing any mismatch or delays.

What’s new:
If the PSP’s maximum settlement period is shorter than the settle_interval you’ve specified for your product, our system will automatically adjust the interval to match the PSP. This keeps your settlements efficient and prevents potential issues.

Learn more about settlement terms in our guide.

Switch to the new, better HUB

On October 15, 2024, we’ll retire the legacy version of the Solidgate HUB. After this date, you can only access our new and improved admin panel. So, if you haven’t already, now is the time to make the switch and leverage the new features and functionality available exclusively in the new HUB.

What’s new in the HUB:

• Much speedier data loading and display.
• Improved clarity when working with Risk analytics.
• Receive refund confirmations directly via Order details and much more!

We look forward to your feedback on the new HUB so that we can keep improving it to meet and exceed your expectations!

Get a clear view of PayPal dispute lifecycle

To help you better navigate PayPal disputes, we’ve added a detailed description of PayPal’s dispute lifecycle and the various outcome statuses. Now, you get a crystal-clear view of each stage, from initiation to resolution. 

Why this matters:
Understanding these stages helps you manage disputes more proactively and respond timely, avoiding falling into high-risk categories like the VMDF. Also, knowing how chargeback rates and dispute ratios are calculated can help you stay within critical thresholds and avoid unnecessary fees.

Update your test cards for smoother payment flows

To ensure your testing environment stays up-to-date, we have made some changes to our test cards. 

If you’re using the old 13-digit test cards for declining recurring orders, recurring authorization transactions, or general 0.01 decline codes, these have now been updated to 16-digit cards.

Make sure to update your test suites to reflect these changes and keep everything running smoothly.

Why this matters:
Using the updated test cards ensures more accurate testing of your payment flows and helps prevent any hiccups in your development process.

For further details, check out our documentation or contact your account manager!