About payment initiation

We have everything your business needs to move money online.

Our Payment Initiation (PIS) technology powers:

  • One-off or recurring payments into accounts, like bank transfers, standing orders, and variable recurring payments.

  • One-off or recurring payments out of accounts, like withdrawals and refunds.

We offer these as standalone services. But they work at their best with our account information services (AIS), like KYC (Know Your Customer) and real-time balance checks.

Product Features
Improve UX/conversion

Improve your user experience and conversion with Plaid’s range of SDKs and integration options, and by removing drop-off from manual bank transfers

Reduce costs

Reduce hefty costs from cards and acquirers with fixed-fee Open Banking payments

Fight fraud

Users authenticate directly with their bank via secure Open Banking integrations, eliminating card and direct debit chargebacks

Offer flexible payment types

Enable users to initiate one-time top ups, or schedule standing orders for recurring deposits (e.g., after they receive their paycheck)

Instant payments

Leverage U.K. Faster Payments rails for instant payments that settle to your account in seconds

Payment confirmation

Payment confirmation notifies you when payments are received in your merchant account so you can ship goods and services with peace of mind.

Plaid offers the most advanced payments experience

By creating your payments journey with us, your customers have an easy, reliable experience. We lead them through a simple process, then they see their payment go through right away. They can trust you from their very first payment.

Integration Options

Plaid Link

Plaid Link is the fastest way to get started, is optimised for conversion, and used by thousands of users every day. It’s constantly updated, so you get the benefits of the full Plaid platform in your UX.

EU Modular Link

With Modular Link, customers can customise elements of account connection flow by selecting from our prebuilt modules and SDKs. For customers with a PISP license, we also offer a whitelabeled option for full user-interface control.

Create payment response

http code 200
{
  "payment_id": "payment-id-sandbox-feca8a7a-5591-4aef-9297-f3062bb735d3",
  "status": "PAYMENT_STATUS_INPUT_NEEDED",
  "request_id": "4ciYVmesrySiUAB"
}

Retrieve payment request data

The /payment/create endpoint allows you to create a payment initiation request

payment_id

The backend identifier of the payment request and can be used to retrieve metadata for the payment request

status

Describes whether the payment has been initiated, needs user input, or has been verified

Retrieve payment request data

The /payment/create endpoint allows you to create a payment initiation request

Create payment response

http code 200
{
  "payment_id": "payment-id-sandbox-feca8a7a-5591-4aef-9297-f3062bb735d3",
  "status": "PAYMENT_STATUS_INPUT_NEEDED",
  "request_id": "4ciYVmesrySiUAB"
}

payment_id

The backend identifier of the payment request and can be used to retrieve metadata for the payment request

status

Describes whether the payment has been initiated, needs user input, or has been verified

Retrieve payment status data

The /payment/get endpoint allows you to retrieve the status of a payment and returns details such as the amount and recipient_id

amount

Settled value in specified currency

last_status_update

The last time that the payment status was updated

recipient_id

The unique identifier of the payment recipient, returned by the /payment_initiation/recipient/create endpoint

status

Describes whether the payment has been initiated, needs user input, or has been verified

Get payment response

http code 200
{
  "payment_id": "payment-id-sandbox-feca8a7a-5591-4aef-9297-f3062bb735d3",
  "payment_token": "payment-token-sandbox-c6a26505-42b4-46fe-8ecf-bf9edcafbebb",
  "reference": "Account Funding 99744",
  "amount": {
    "currency": "GBP",
    "value": 100.00
  },
  "status": "PAYMENT_STATUS_INPUT_NEEDED",
  "last_status_update": "2019-11-06T21:10:52Z",
  "recipient_id": "recipient-id-sandbox-9b6b4679-914b-445b-9450-efbdb80296f6",
  "request_id": "aEAQmewMzlVa1k6"
}

Retrieve payment status data

The /payment/get endpoint allows you to retrieve the status of a payment and returns details such as the amount and recipient_id

Get payment response

http code 200
{
  "payment_id": "payment-id-sandbox-feca8a7a-5591-4aef-9297-f3062bb735d3",
  "payment_token": "payment-token-sandbox-c6a26505-42b4-46fe-8ecf-bf9edcafbebb",
  "reference": "Account Funding 99744",
  "amount": {
    "currency": "GBP",
    "value": 100.00
  },
  "status": "PAYMENT_STATUS_INPUT_NEEDED",
  "last_status_update": "2019-11-06T21:10:52Z",
  "recipient_id": "recipient-id-sandbox-9b6b4679-914b-445b-9450-efbdb80296f6",
  "request_id": "aEAQmewMzlVa1k6"
}

amount

Settled value in specified currency

last_status_update

The last time that the payment status was updated

recipient_id

The unique identifier of the payment recipient, returned by the /payment_initiation/recipient/create endpoint

status

Describes whether the payment has been initiated, needs user input, or has been verified

Questions about how Plaid can fit into your business?

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