Developer's Guide

Introducing Adaptive Payments
Simple, Parallel, and Chained Payments
20 August 7, 2012 Adaptive Payments Developer Guide
Simple Payments
Simple payments enable a sender to send a single payment to a single receiver. This is
sometimes considered a traditional payment, such as a payment from a buyer to a seller.
Scenarios involving simple payments might include the following scenarios:
 Buyer makes a payment on a merchant’s website.
 Buyer makes a single payment for a cart of items from the same merchant.
 Person on a social networking site makes a payment for a purchase to the receiver. For
example, a sender sends money to pay for lunch at a restaurant.
In these cases, the sender sends a payment to a single receiver. The following example shows a
sender making a simple payment:
Parallel Payments
A parallel payment is a payment from a sender that is split directly among 2-6 receivers.
Technically, a parallel payment is a set of multiple payments made in a single Pay request.
Parallel payments are useful in cases when a buyer intends to make a single payment for items
from multiple sellers. Examples include the following scenarios:
 a single payment for multiple items from different merchants, such as a combination of
items in your inventory and items that partners drop ship for you.
 purchases of items related to an event, such as a trip that requires airfare, car rental, and a
hotel booking.
In these cases, the sender knows the receivers and the amount paid to each one. The following
example shows a sender paying 3 receivers in a single parallel payment: