At borderless, we pride ourselves on our easy and affordable platform that allows convenient payments to over 120 countries. Are you a marketplace, a startup or an Enterprise looking for a global Payout API? Our goal is to make global payments as simple as possible. With a single API integration to borderless, you can handle all of your global payment needs. In continuation of our blog series, we are going to take a deep dive into our API platform and how you can integrate it into your borderless experience.

What is API?

You might be wondering, what exactly is API? To start, API stands for Application Programming Interface and is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. At borderless, we use API integration so you can efficiently handle and automate all of your global payment needs to 120+ countries. Our Global Payout API allows you to build custom payout experiences with solutions for businesses of all sizes.

Global Payment API at borderless™

Built For Flexibility: Here Are 3 Unique API Integration Examples

At borderless, we offer tools to customize your payments however we listed the three most used API integration experiences to make payments. These examples are uniquely designed to fit the payment needs of your business with each one offering different levels of customization and go to market speed. All three of these examples are explained in more detail below:

Contacts + Pay Out API Integration

Our first integration is our Contacts + Pay-Out experience. This is our most popular API integration. It allows you to build custom experiences. More specifically, you can add contacts to your borderless account and manage contact information to keep your payments list current all via API. This allows for companies to keep the UI/UX in house and automate payments via borderless. This great if your company has already built a profile section where the user (Seller, freelancer, content creator, teacher, etc.) enters their own banking information while setting up their profile on your platform. Typically, this API integration takes 2-5 days to implement, but this can vary. To learn more about our Contacts + Pay-Out platform, click here. 

Link + Pay Out API Integration

Our second and fastest API integration is our Link + Pay-Out plan. It allows you to create a turnkey experience that is embedded within your app. You can embed our Link product which is an iframe widget that your can integrate within your application using a few lines of code to automate contact creation. Link is built to automate compliance requirements by country, real-time bank data validation and contact creation directly into your application. Once a user inputs their information into borderless, Link will validate the information and create a unique @handle for API payouts. In addition, the Widget can be white labeled to have the same look and feel if you upgrade your plan. Typically, this API integration takes 1-2 days to implement, but this can vary. To learn more about our Link + Pay-Out API, click here.

Partner API Integration: Embedded Payments Service

The last integration is our Partner API. We are extremely excited to begin bringing our Partner API to your borderless integration. This premium option allows you to create a Partner account where you can embed payments into your system. As a Partner you can now automate business borderless account creation where you can now manage and execute payments on-behalf of your clients. This is ideal for B2B marketplaces or other platforms who are looking to embed payments as a service. A more detailed blog post featuring our new Partner API can be found here. In the meantime, you can learn more about our Partner API by clicking here. 

borderless™ Payments APIs

After choosing an API integration to add contacts, the next step is to choose a payment API. We have a Payouts API and a Collections API. Both options are highlighted below. 

• Your business can use the borderless Payouts API to programmatically make global payouts to over 120 countries with just a few lines of code. This allows you to create a customized payouts experience that fits your business. With our Payouts API you can pay contractors, workers, distributors, vendors, and more in seconds. This API typically takes a few hours to a day to implement. To learn more about our Payouts API, click here. 
• Using the borderless Collections API, your business can debit other borderless accounts (who are your customers’ either their balance or bank accounts*) by implementing just a few lines of code. With our On-Demand Debit API, you can get paid from your clients at any time. The funds will be debited from the clients’ bank account and are delivered directly to your account with no wire fees and included currency conversions. Our Collections API usually takes 1-4 days to install. To learn more about this API feature, click here.
  *: Available only in the US.

How To Get Started With The borderless™ API

Pre-Coding

There are a few easy steps that must be completed before the coding can begin. Firstly, your business has to establish a business account with borderless. Once this account is created, there is a quick verification period that is conducted for your security. Secondly, your borderless Account Manager needs to select an API plan. All three of our plans are detailed above and can be tailored to fit your business needs. Lastly, your Account Manager can enable Sandbox access. Although this is optional, borderless provides a Sandbox Environment to experience and experiment with our API before implementing it to your own production environment. 

Getting Started 

There are three easy steps that will allow your company to make API payments. 

1. Get authentication by verifying your API calls by creating a JWT token. See our authentication guide here. 
2. Add contacts by entering the @handles of borderless users or contact information of non-borderless users. Learn more here. 
3. After completing the two previous steps, your business is all set to begin making payments! Now you can begin making payments to over 120 countries with just a few lines of code. 

Benefits of using API

Fast and Easy Payments

With a single API integration to borderless, your business can handle all of its global payment needs at a low cost. The integration allows easy payouts to bank accounts, borderless @handles, and emails. Additionally, we take care of all global compliance requirements, including KYC and AML. 

We also offer a diverse set of payment rails. Currently, we have iACH for global yet local bank delivery, RTP for delivery of funds in seconds, and SWIFT for global bank wire transfers. At borderless, we are continually expanding our payment rails to include the latest and greatest in payments. Soon, we will be offering cards, mobile wallet, and cash pickup. 

Scalable

We know your company and operations are growing and we don’t want you to suffer from having to adjust to other payment systems as the number of transactions start to scale. At borderless we built an API that can scale with you. With one API call, you can either process 1 payment or 3,000+ payments process thousands of payments in one go. We also know reconciliation of thousands of payments is tedious and difficult. We built tools and features such as CSV file download, custom payment description fields, field to link both systems, Client Internal Reference for contacts and more to make the process automated and simple.

Reduce Payment Errors

Our system is built to reduce payment errors. Our API provides all the prerequisite and compliance information needed to deliver a payment to a certain country and currency. In addition, our system validates in real-time global bank information such as IBAN validity, length, SWIFT code, etc. to ensure that the bank is able to receive funds. If payment fails, you are immediately notified and funds are returned to correct the payment.

Security & Privacy

We take security and privacy very seriously at borderless. Our system is built with military grade encryption standards allowing to make API calls securely. Bank data information is always encrypted and not visible to our clients. You can automate contact creation and save their bank information in our system reducing bank data liability. @handles are great way to identify recipients, manage their payments and pay them securely while keeping privacy top of mind.

No-Code Options

Don’t want to code – no problem! borderless still offers a suite of payment options for those not ready for full API integration. On our dashboard, your business can make and manage payments to all of our represented countries in just a few clicks. For businesses needing to make mass payouts, we offer a File Upload option. You can upload a .CSV Payments File that can process thousands of payments at once. Additionally, we offer Payouts Via Groups where you can process multiple payments to a group all at once. However, we still strongly recommend that you integrate the borderless API platform for a more efficient experience using our automated features.

Conclusion

Whether your business is large, small, or anything in between, our API integrations give you the ability to control your global payments. With our different packages, diverse API options, and easy setup, we are confident that our system can simplify payment needs. To learn more about our API, get in touch with borderless or schedule a demo. 

Lastly, make sure to keep up with the borderless blog and the next posts in our series!