Glossary

API (application programming interface)

A set of definitions and protocols that enable you to create software that integrates with other systems.

Beneficiary 

The party receiving the funds sent by the payer. Also called “payee”.

Cancel

The process of cancelling a payment when the debtor requests to have their money back from the creditor.

Idempotency 

A property of certain API operations to ensure that the operation can be called multiple times with the same result. Idempotency is used in Payments Hub to ensure that multiple payment requests containing the same payment details do not result in multiple identical payments.

ISO 20022

An ISO standard that describes the metadata and message structure for financial information transferred between financial institutions, such as payment transactions, securities trading, and credit and debit card transactions.

Live environment

The live environment, also called “production environment”, is where the service and its APIs are available for actual use.

Onboarding

The process of subscribing to the live environment. In addition to getting the necessary credentials for using the live environment, you provide some additional information to Payments Hub and agree on exactly how you want to use the API (for example, whether you want to receive notifications).

Payee

See “beneficiary”.

Payer

The party whose funds are to be transferred to the beneficiary.

Payment scheme

A set of rules defining how payment transactions are executed through a specific payment instrument (such as credit transfer) by the financial institutions participating in the scheme. Examples of payment schemes include SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) in the EU and Faster Payments (FP) in the UK.

Payments Hub

A cloud solution for handling domestic and cross-border payment transfers. Through a single API, Payments Hub enables you to handle payments for a variety of payment schemes.

Postman collection

A downloadable set of preconfigured API calls that can be used with the Postman app. The Postman collection included in the Payments Hub documentation enables you to easily test the API calls in the Payments Hub sandbox environment.

PRO (production environment)

See “live environment”.

Refund

The process of refunding a payment when the debtor requests part of their money back.

Return

The process of returning a payment when the creditor does not want to receive the original payment. The money is returned in full to the debtor.

Sandbox

The sandbox is a development environment populated with sample data in which you can test the available API calls.