BAP <-> BPP payment terms agreement before end-user is involved

[NikithShetty]

Problem statement

For a transaction to happen with online payments, there are three variables that needs to be figured out/agreed upon by BAP and BPP:

1. Who is collecting payments? BAP or BPP? payment.collected_by
2. When in the transaction journey the payment is to be confirmed? payment.type
3. Settlement terms

As of today, as per current network transaction flows in different networks, BAP sends these parameters in /init API and BPP can agree or disagree in /on_init API.

However, if BAP and BPP don't come to an agreement at this step, end-user experience is ruined as the user has come all the way from searching for a product/service and at checkout stage they find out placing an order is not possible with this combination of BAP and BPP.

Proposed solution

I would propose that these parameters need to be agreed upon by both the parties (BAP and BPP) even before the end-user can view the product/service from BPP on the BAP platform.

Several ways this can be achieved:

1. This can happen before /search is initiated - network policy can state one set of values for these variables which all network participants agree to
2. Set of APIs with mechanism for BAPs and BPPs of the network to negotiate and come to an agreement programmatically, pre-search stage
3. During /search and /on_search stage itself.
   • BAP can send possible payment terms that it can support in /search API
   • BPP can match these terms with its supported payment terms and decide to send /on_search or not
   • BAP can still match BPP returned payment terms in /on_search with its supported payment terms to decide whether to show the end-user BPP catalog or not.

   Note: this would require a slight change in /search and /on_search schema to transmit array of supported payment terms. Same results can also be achieved by using Tags