How to Create a Payment Method

On this page, you will find a walk-through guide on creating a payment method and the necessary information to accomplish this task.

Prerequisites

Before making any call to the LINKs API, you first need a merchant account. Contact our team at Discover@LinksMerchantServices.com to get started.

Creating a Payment Method

To create a payment method in LINKs, you need to call the Create a New Payment Method endpoint. The following are the parameters needed to initiate the payment method creation:

Field	Description	Required
`merchantIdentifier`	A unique identifier for the merchant, used to associate the payment method with the correct merchant account.	Yes
`customerIdentifier`	A unique identifier for the customer. This is optional and can be used to associate the payment method with a specific customer.	No
`customerReference`	An optional reference provided by the merchant to identify the customer.	No
`card`	Details about the credit card used for the payment method.	Yes
`billingInformation`	Billing address and contact details associated with the payment method.	No

Within the card object, the following fields are used:

Field	Description	Required
`cardNumber`	The credit card number.	Yes
`expiryMonth`	The expiry month of the credit card (1-12).	Yes
`expiryYear`	The expiry year of the credit card (e.g., 2025).	Yes
`cardHolderName`	The name of the cardholder as it appears on the credit card.	No
`cvv`	The card verification value (CVV) for the credit card.	No
`creditCardBrand`	The brand of the credit card, such as Visa or MasterCard. Accepted values: `MasterCard`, `Visa`, `Amex`, `Discover`, `JCB`.	Yes

You can use the code snippet below to make the endpoint call with the required parameters:

curl --request POST \
--url https://testapi.linksmerchantservices.com/api/paymentmethods \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'Authorization: Basic <your_base64_encoded_credentials>' \
--data '{
  "merchantIdentifier": "<your_merchant_id>",
  "customerIdentifier": "<optional_customer_id>",
  "customerReference": "<optional_customer_reference>",
  "card": {
    "cardNumber": "4111111111111111",
    "expiryMonth": 12,
    "expiryYear": 2025,
    "cardHolderName": "John Doe",
    "cvv": "123",
    "creditCardBrand": "Visa"
  }
  "billingInformation": {
    "firstLine": "540 NE 4th st",
    "secondLine": "Second Floor",
    "city": "FLL",
    "region": "FL",
    "zipCode": "33091",
    "countryAlpha3Code": "USA"
  },
}'

Authentication

Depending on the request, LINKs API offers two forms of authentication, Basic and client token. Refer to the Authentication guide to learn more about it.

This will result in a JSON response exemplified below:

{
  "merchantIdentifier": "af9a9d3e-3d3b-4f7d-9fde-4169f1abedd5",
  "customerIdentifier": "c8ee51a9-f6c0-4108-a7c1-c8a821ffce2c",
  "customerReference": "154564559",
  "paymentMethodIdentifier": "583c748c-beea-4dc1-808a-2f34309e62f5",
  "card": {
    "cardNumber": "4111111111111111",
    "expiryMonth": 12,
    "expiryYear": 2025,
    "cardHolderName": "John Doe",
    "cvv": "123",
    "creditCardBrand": "Visa"
  },
  "billingInformation": {
    "firstLine": "540 NE 4th st",
    "secondLine": "Second Floor",
    "city": "FLL",
    "region": "FL",
    "zipCode": "33091",
    "countryAlpha3Code": "USA",
    "countryId": 1
  },
  "result": {
    "resultType": "Accepted",
    "merchantMessage": "",
    "logIdentifier": "60554180-07ed-4cd0-92ca-3b5ac79c1fb3",
    "logAsError": false
  }
}

With the paymentMethodIdentifier found in the response, you can either retrieve, update or delete the newly created payment method.

Prerequisites​

Creating a Payment Method​

Prerequisites

Creating a Payment Method