SCA payment indicators

When merchants process a payment that requires Strong Customer Authentication(SCA), they must provide additional context about the transaction. The additional context, or payment indicator, ensures that buyer authentication and card on file, among other factors, are appropriately handled. Failure to pass these payment indicators might result in rejected transactions.

Know before you code

• You'll need an advanced credit and debit card payments integration.

• Use Postman to explore and test PayPal APIs.

Add request parameter

Update the POST v2/checkout/orders request body to include stored_credential.

Sample request

API endpoint used: Create order

curl -v -X POST https://api-m.sandbox.paypal.com/v2/checkout/orders \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json"\
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <Access-Token>"\
  -H 'PayPal-Partner-Attribution-Id: <BN-Code>' \
  d '{
    "intent": "CAPTURE",
    "purchase_units": [{
      "reference_id": "d9f80740-38f0-11e8-b467-0ed5f89f718b",
      "amount":

    {
      "currency_code": "USD",
      "value": "100.00"
    }
  }],
  "payment_source": {
    "card": {
      "number": "4111111111111111",
      "expiry": "2020-02",
      "name": "John Doe",
      "billing_address":

      {
        "address_line_1": "2211 N First Street",
        "address_line_2": "17.3.160",
        "admin_area_1": "CA",
        "admin_area_2": "San Jose",
        "postal_code": "95131",
        "country_code": "US"
      },
      "stored_credential":
      {
        "payment_initiator": "MERCHANT",
        "payment_type": "RECURRING",
        "usage": "SUBSEQUENT",
        "previous_transaction_reference": "53963906K75832009"
      }
    }
  }
  },

Modify the code

Copy the code snippet and modify the values for stored_credential, as needed.

• Change BN-Code to your PayPal Partner Attribution ID.
• payment_initiator values (required):
  • CUSTOMER — Customer initiates the payment.
  • MERCHANT — Merchant initiates the transaction and the merchant has established consent to charge the buyer.
• payment_type values (required):
  • UNSCHEDULED — Payments that the merchant initiates and are not on a specified schedule. For example, this includes preauthorized transactions where the merchant can charge the buyer once a balance falls within a specified range. These transactions are also referred to as top-up.
  • RECURRING — Merchant initiates a payment as part of a series of recurring payments. The payment amounts can be variable and are on a fixed time interval.
  • ONE_TIME &emdash; default when no stored_credential is sent.
• usage values:
  • FIRST — Save card information or payment token to use in subsequent transactions. Collect consent from the buyer that you intend to save their payment information.
  • SUBSEQUENT — Card information or payment token was previously saved and is used in the transaction.
  • DERIVED — PayPal derives the value of FIRST or SUBSEQUENT based on data available to PayPal.
• previous_transaction_reference — PayPal transaction ID previously used to charge the buyer. Shows payment processors that you have established a contract with the buyer.
• previous_network_transaction_reference values:
  • previous_network_transactionID — Transaction ID from a non-PayPal payment processor that you have previously used to process the payment.
  • network — TransactionID from a non-PayPal payment processor that you have previously used to process the payment.
• network_transaction_reference — Reference values used by the card network to identify a transaction.
  • ID (required) — Transaction reference ID returned by the scheme.
  • NETWORK (required) — Name of the card network through which the transaction was routed.
  • DATE — The date that the transaction was authorized by the scheme.

Step result

A successful request results in the following:

• A return status code of HTTP 201 Created.
• A JSON response body that contains the processor response.

Use cases

You can use these common scenarios to determine how you'll update your integration.

One time transaction

Recurring plan or subscription

Unscheduled payment

Next steps

Go live