Overview of popular payment methods

Direct debit

With a direct debit, a customer can authorize merchants to collect funds from their account.

Customers can choose between one-time payments or monthly invoices. To do so, they must confirm their credentials (account information and personal details).

Once the payment is confirmed, customers receive a mandate as a confirmation of the withdrawal of funds from their account.

Some payment methods that allow Direct Debit offered by Adyen are ACH Direct Debit, BACS Direct Debit, and SEPA Direct Debit.

Cash and ATM

Cash and ATM payment methods allow shoppers to pay online with the possibility to still pay in-person for their products and services afterwards.

Usually, these payment methods are based on printed vouchers or payment instructions, that the shoppers create at the checkout step of a webshop. Then, these payment instructions can be used by the client to finalize their purchases at a physical bank, ATM or authorized payment point, like a store. In some cases, these payment methods allow the exchange of the vouchers online, over banking apps or online banking.

Customers must perform the payment before the voucher expires. Shipment will take place once the transaction has been completed.

Buy now, Pay Later

Buy now, Pay later payment methods allow shoppers to benefit from their purchase immediately, while paying at a later stage. Customers start their payment process once the goods are delivered. Merchants get paid once the capture of the transaction is performed.

These BNPL payment methods perform their own risk checks on the customer to validate their credit score, so it’s important to provide as much customer information as possible at the moment of payment.

Customers will be presented with a breakdown of their purchase information in an invoice. Therefore, the price and product of the purchased items must be included at the moment of Buy now, Pay later payment. An invoice will be sent with the capture request of the transaction.

Note: The capture behavior of Buy now, Pay later payment methods varies.

Tip: Merchants receive the funds even when shoppers do not honor their invoices. Chargebacks can only occur if you didn't comply with the regulations of the partner. An example of such case is if goods are not shipped on time. These regulations may be found in our Customer Area on the top right notification icon.

Digital wallets

Digital card wallets concentrate on creating electronic versions of physical cards that are stored in a digital wallet, usually on a mobile device. These digital wallets use the same card networks as the physical version of the card for the underlying payment. Some examples are Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay, and Samsung Pay.

Other payment methods such as WeChat Pay or Alipay are also digital wallets but these don’t use a digitized card.

Digital wallet benefits

• Stable and high conversion rates
• Simplified checkout process
• Reduced friction
• Secure (low fraud rate)
• Simplified merchant onboarding process
• Wide coverage