Bank Transfer

Direct charge via bank transfer enables you to create account details (including an account number and bank) instantly, allowing customers to make payments conveniently through instant bank transfers.

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Bank Transfer Support

Bank transfer is currently only supported for MWK transactions.

The Process
Collecting payments through a bank transfer charge is simple and hassle-free:

1. Use the bank transfer charge endpoint to initiate a charge and generate unique account details for the customer to make their payment.
2. The customer makes a payment by transferring funds to the generated account.
3. We send a webhook to notify you once the payment is received.
4. You confirm the payment and proceed to fulfill the customer’s order.

Initiating the Charge

To initiate the charge, you'll call the bank transfer charge endpoint. You'll need to specify:

• charge_id: A unique reference code that you'll generate for each transaction.
• amount: The amount to be charged for the transaction.
• currency: The currency to be used for the charge ( always use"MWK").
• payment_method: The payment method use ( "mobile_bank_transfer" )

curl --request POST \
     --url https://api.paychangu.com/direct-charge/payments/initialize \
     --header 'Authorization: Bearer sec-test-2Xhuyv2Plb24DQMG26CN2sDKYzyoFMEM' \
     --header 'accept: application/json' \
     --header 'content-type: application/json' \
     --data '
{
  "payment_method": "mobile_bank_transfer",
  "amount": "1000",
  "currency": "MWK",
  "charge_id": "PC-YR6D43446"
}
'

If the charge is created successfully, you'll get a successful response containing the generated account details.

{
  "status": "success",
  "message": "Payment initialized successfully.",
  "data": {
    "payment_account_details": {
      "bank_name": "Centenary Bank",
      "account_number": "2652455380",
      "account_name": "PayChangu",
      "account_expiration_timestamp": 1736805724
    },
    "transaction": {
      "amount": 1000,
      "charge_id": "PC-YR6D43446",
      "ref_id": "25274666909",
      "type": "Direct API Payment",
      "trace_id": "OiG8diXHAbw3Y7yz4sZwuY610GdIc1dy",
      "status": "pending",
      "mobile": "0",
      "attempts": 1,
      "currency": "MK",
      "mode": "sandbox",
      "created_at": "2025-01-13T21:02:04.000000Z",
      "event_type": "api.charge.payment",
      "transaction_charges": {
        "currency": "MK",
        "amount": "20"
      },
      "authorization": {
        "channel": "Mobile Bank Transfer",
      }
    }
  }
}

Completing the Payment

The data.payment_account_details object contains the account details for the transfer: the bank name (bank_name), account number (account_number) account expiration ("account_expiration_timestamp"), get the amount on data.transaction amount (amount). Pass the details on to your customer, and they can make an instant bank transfer into the account (for instance, from their bank app or USSD using the Instant transfer option available on all Malawian banks ). The account expires in 1 hour from the time generated.

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Testing Tip

In Test Mode, bank transfers are automatically approved and processed within a few seconds.

Webhooks

Your webhook endpoint can process the event and finalize the customer’s order. For assistance with configuring webhooks, refer to our webhook setup guide.

Within your webhook handler, you can verify the payment and allocate the purchased items or services to your customers. For more information, check out our Charge Verification guide.