Getting started guide for merchants

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Last updated: May 29, 2020 by Junaid

You have signed up with PayU, what are the next steps?

Please familiarise yourself with the information below as it aims to get you successfully integrating and transacting as speedily as possible.

1. What should you do in order to successfully integrate with PayU?

1.1. Activate your merchant portal and retrieve your API credentials

When integrating you will require a Safekey, SOAP username and password in order for your website to interact with the PayU services. These details are the unique identifiers PayU uses to identify transactions coming to your store. For instructions on the process please go here. Please forward this to your technical team as they require this detail to help your website transact successfully with PayU.

1.2. Decide how you will manage your transactions

Prior to integration you will need to decide how you will manage your transactions as this is a vital business and operational process decision and it will influence what direction your integration takes. For a detailed explanation on this topic please refer to the 'What does it mean to "Auth" and "Settle"' page. You will then need to instruct your technical team/developer how you will be managing your transactions as they will need to build that into the solution.

1.3 Risk considerations:

1.3.1 3D Secure:

    • Please familiarise yourself on the 3D secure process and the available PayU risk configurations by reading the 3D secure merchant guide
    • If you are a PayU Easy merchant your stores are configured to process 3D SECURE FULLY AUTHENTICATED ONLY credit card transactions. This means that any un-enrolled card transactions will fail.
    • If you elected to do your own acquiring, please be aware that PASA has mandated the use of 3D Secure for online credit card transactions.

1.3.2 International credit cards:

PayU Easy stores are configured to accept ONLY South African cards. If merchants required the use of international cards they have to provide specific motivation. Please contact support.

1.3.3 Fraud detection services:

As an optional extra, paid-for-service, any merchant can request PayU to enable Fraud Detection on their stores.

1.4 Display the Payment Logos on Your Website

2. Integrating with PayU

All technical integration documentation is available for download on the integration section. The integration section contains custom integration documentation, demos, test details and the latest shopping cart plugins developed and supported by PayU. 

In order to complete a successful integration, it is recommended to first do a test integration against PayU's staging environment, before moving onto the production/live environment. Once the test integration process is complete, the staging detail will need to be substituted with the production detail. If you require any technical support during your integration/development phase, please contact PayU's integration support team. This section aims to provide you with a high level integration overview as well where to find the relevant information to integrate quickly and successfully.


2.1 Decide how you will be integrating by using either a shopping cart plugins or doing a custom integration.

You will need to decide if you will be integrating with PayU using a shopping cart framework or do a custom integration development.

2.1.1 Shopping cart plugin

PayU has created custom plugins for some of the most popular shopping cart solutions and content management systems. The plugins allow for easy integration between the shopping cart/content management system and the PayU payment gateway. To view or download from the list of plugins, please go to the plugins downloads page.

2.1.2 Custom integration

If you require a custom integration, your technical team can review the technical integration documentation on our custom integration section. There is also a library of code examples on hand for various development languages to make the integration process faster and easier. Technical documentation and code examples can be downloaded based on the product below


2.2 Customise your payment page (Redirect payment page only).

The process for customisation the redirect payment page can be found on the payment page customisation section.


2.3 Where can test details/credentials be found.

All test credentials can be found on the test credentials page on the developer section.


2.4 Test cases

The recommended test cases for your integration phase are:

2.3.1 Successful transaction

Once a customer has been redirected from your website to the PayU Payment Page, the customer will use the test credit cards details to simulate a successful test payment. The customer's browser will be redirected back to the your merchant website from where an API call will be issued. This API call response should reflect the successful payment state of the transaction.

2.3.2 Cancelled transaction

Once a customer has been redirected from the merchant's website to the PayU Payment Page, then a cancelled transaction can be simulated when the customer clicks on the cancel link on the PayU interface.The customer's browser will be redirected back to the your merchant website from where an API call will be issued. This API call response should reflect the cancelled state of the transaction.

2.3.3 Failed transaction

PayU transactions can have a maximum amount of up to 5 Million Rand.  To simulated an error or failed response use amounts larger than this amount as the transaction amount for payment. A customer will create a shopping basket greater than 5 Million Rand and when wanting to pay get redirected from your website to the PayU Payment Page. The customer will use one of the test credit cards to pay on the payment page. The customer's browser will be redirected back to the your merchant website from where an API call will be issued. This API call response should reflect the failed state of the transaction.

2.3.4 Live/Production transaction testing

Once you have completed a successful staging tests you can substitute the staging details with the production detail received from PayU. Once the production details are entered, it is recommended to do a couple of transactions with a real credit card. These transaction should be reflected in the transaction report within PayU's SafeShop. These transaction amounts can be refunded using PayU's SafeShop, but unfortunately the transaction fees not.


2.3 Review Frequently asked questions section

It is a good idea to start familiarising yourself with PayU's FAQ section. This will help you as a merchant with possible questions you might have during the integration phase prior to going "live" with your store


3. What to do once your integration is finished.

This section aims to provide you with information to get the necessary support past the integration phase.


3.1 Where do you view and manage your transactions?

Once integration is complete, you can manage you transactions using the PayU merchant portal located at merchantportal.payu.co.za.

If your store is 3D Secure enabled, please make sure to refer to the 3D Secure guide in order to acquaint yourself on how to manage these transactions.  When reviewing this guide, please make sure to familiarise yourself with the various 3D Secure transaction responses and how they influence a transaction's liability from a merchant's perspective.


3.2 Where do you find support/assistance

Should you require assistance please consult the merchant FAQ section first as it should be able to assist you. If it was unable to help resolve your query feel free to contact our support centre.