Technical information for Vipps partners.
Document version: 1.1.7.
- How to become a Vipps partner
- Technical information for partners
- How to sign up new merchants
- FAQ for partners
- Questions?
If you and your merchants have a good volume and great potential, we would like to have you on the team as a partner. The goal of the partner program is to find areas where we can work closely together and experience good growth - together. The collaboration will give you good exposure and opportunities for even better solutions for our customers.
Vipps has three types of partners:
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Platform partners: Provide a "closed" ready-to-use platform for their merchants, do all integration with the Vipps APIs, do all development and maintenance on their platform, and also provide all support for the merchants.
Platform partners use the Vipps APIs on behalf of merchants (initiate payments, do captures, do refunds, etc).
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Integration partners: Assist merchants in development of the merchants' integration. Typically a consultancy firm doing development for the merchant. An integration partner does not use the Vipps APIs on behalf of the merchant.
If the integration partner continue to run, manage and develop the everything related to the Vipps integration, and also manage the API credentials on behalf of the merchant, the partner is similar to a platform partner and should use partner keys.
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Plugin partners: Develop Vipps' official open source plugins on contract for Vipps.
If a partner uses official Vipps plugins to implement a Vipps integration for a merchant, the API credentials for the merchant must be used, and the partner use the Vipps APIs on behalf of the merchant.
A partner may act as a different type of partner in different situation. It is possible for a partner to both develop an official Vipps plugin and to be a platform partner.
This document is mainly for platform partners, that act on behalf of merchants, using one set of API keys for all merchants: Partner keys. Other partners must rely on each merchant's individual API keys.
Information for PSP (Payment Service Providers) is here: Vipps PSP API, including PSP Signup API
Please visit the partner page at Vipps.no, read through our FAQ, and fill out the form.
See: Developer documentation.
You will receive an email with details about access to the test environment.
Please note: Access to the production environment requires thorough checks required by law. For most partners this is not relevant, as it is the partner's merchants that will need production access. The partner only needs access to the test environment to complete an integration.
An integration is considered finished when all the elements of the relevant API's checklist are done (see the checklists for the eCom API and the Recurring API).
In addition, all partners are required to complete the following:
- As a partner you accept the Partner terms and conditions
- Technical documentation for merchants
- Documentation for merchants regarding how to apply for Vipps products
- Documentation for merchants regarding how to configure and use the module
- FAQ for merchants
- Provide one pilot customer to verify the integration in production environment
When the integration checklist is completed, notify Vipps as described in the checklist. The Vipps Integration team will verify the integration, and contact the partner.
Vipps then adds the partner to vipps.no, including the signup forms on portal.vipps.no where the merchants can sign up and select the partner as their partner.
All developer documentation and tools is available on GitHub.
See the Vipps API Lifecycle for information about deprecation notices, etc.
As a partner you manage transactions on behalf of Vipps merchants. Vipps provide you with partner keys, which allows you to use your own API credentials to make API calls on behalf of your merchants (only for the sale units that are linked to you as a partner, though).
With the partner keys you authenticate in the normal way, and then send
the required Merchant-Serial-Number header to identify which of your merchants you are
acting on behalf of.
The same set of partner keys can be used for all your merchants' sale units, for both the Vipps eCom API and the Vipps Recurring API, including the Userinfo endpoints for both.
See: Partner keys for eCom and Partner keys for Recurring
Please note: Vipps payments can only be made to merchants that have a customer relationship with Vipps, and that have gone through the required compliance checks, etc after ordering Vipps on portal.vipps.no. It is not possible to pay the partner instead of the merchant. See also: Can I create a marketplace with multiple merchants?
All official plugins are open source, free to use, and available in our plugin section, as well as on the platforms they are designed for.
We encourage submitting issues and PRs to improve the plugins.
If you have developed, or plan to develop, a plugin for Vipps, and you think it may be a candidate for becoming an official plugin: See How to become a Vipps partner and let us know what your plans are.
The below is for platform partners. Merchants that do not use a platform partner sign up on their own on portal.vipps.no.
All merchants must have a customer relationship with Vipps, in addition to the one with the partner.
A merchant that already has a customer relationship with Vipps still needs to apply for a new product (sale unit) to use with a new partner.
- The merchant applies for Vipps on
portal.vipps.no
and selects:
- The correct product
- The partner
- The price package, typically "Small", "Medium" or "Large"
- Vipps processes the application and does customer control (KYC, PEP, AML, etc). This may take a few days, depending on the information provided and the workload.
- The merchant can check the status of the application on portal.vipps.no at any time. Vipps does not have the capacity to answer emails with status inquiries.
- Vipps notifies the merchant and the partner by email that the application is approved, with thew new MSN, and that the merchant can now use Vipps. If the application is declined, only the merchant is notified.
The partner uses their partner keys and the new MSN to make Vipps payments.
We have started on a proof of concept for a Partner API, which will improve the process above. Please bear with us in the meantime.
The application solution on portal.vipps.no contains a lot of help and tips, as well as links to more information.
There are still some common problems that cause delays:
- The application is not signed by a person that has signatory rights. Merchants can check who can sign at Brønnøysundregistrene.
- The merchant's website does not have the legally required terms and conditions.
- The merchant's website does not have the organization number clearly visible.
- The merchant has not provided enough information about what they want to use Vipps for ("Spesifiser kort hvilke varer/tjenester dere selger").
- Vipps has sent an email requesting additional information, but has not received a reply. Merchants should check their "spam" and try to search their email for "vipps".
- The application has been declined. Vipps only informs the merchant about this, not the partner.
Please note: Partners should always check with the merchant for an updated status before contacting Vipps.
An early draft of the Vipps Partner API is available on GitHub: https://github.com/vippsas/vipps-partner-api
The plan for the Vipps Partner API will let partners, banks and large corporations manage their merchants and sale units. See the GitHub repository for background and priorities.
The soon-to-be-deprecated legacy Vipps Signup API, also called "partial signup", is still available for partners that have already started using it, but new partners should use the more efficient partner keys (and the Vipps Partner API when available).
The Vipps Signup API in short:
- Partners sendt some basic info about a new merchant to Vipps.
- The merchant get a URL to a form with a few pre-filled fields.
- The merchant completes the form and signs with BankID.
- Vipps processes the application and does customer control (KYC, PEP, AML, etc).
- Vipps makes a callback to the partner's API with the merchant's new API keys.
We are phasing out the Vipps Signup API because:
- The signup process is now on portal.vipps.no and has many improvements over the old signup form that is used in steps 2 and 3 above as part of the Signup API.
- Partner keys eliminate the need for merchant-specific API keys, so step 5 is no longer needed.
You may find answers to your questions on our FAQ section on the bottom of the partner page on vipps.no
We're always happy to help with code or other questions you might have! Please create an issue, a pull request, or contact us by email: [email protected].
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