Developer's Guide

Adaptive Payments Developer Guide August 7, 2012 23
Introducing Adaptive Payments
Adaptive Payments Service Permissions
 Preapproved payments, in which a sender logs in to PayPal and sets up preapprovals that
approve future payments or set up a preapproval during the embedded payment flow.
The sender logs in to paypal.com once to set up the preapproval. After the sender agrees to
the preapproval, specific approval is unnecessary.
 Implicit approval payments, in which your application is both the sender of a payment and
the caller of the Adaptive Payments Pay API.
In this case, PayPal makes the payment from your own account, which eliminates the need
for approval.
Adaptive Payments Service Permissions
Adaptive Payments services are divided into 2 categories: standard services that do not require
specific permission to use and advanced services that require permission from PayPal to use.
You obtain permission to use a service when you submit an application to PayPal.
You can use the following standard services without requesting specific permission:
 Making simple or parallel payments that require explicit approval of the sender
 Getting payment details
 Making refunds
 Performing currency conversions
To use any other service, you must receive permission from PayPal to use the service when
you submit your application. For example, if your application makes chained payments, which
is an advanced service, you request permission when you submit your application. Later, if
you modify your application to support preapprovals, which is also an advanced service, you
must resubmit your application to obtain permission from PayPal to use the service.
IMPORTANT: If you allow a third party to PayPal to execute an application on your behalf,
the third party becomes the API caller because the party is now calling the
Adaptive Payments API. The third party must also have permission from
PayPal to use the advanced service. For example, if an application supports
chained payments, both you and the third party must have permission to use
the service.
Explicit Approval Payment Flow
Explicit approval payments require the sender to log in to paypal.com to approve the payment.
You control the interaction between your application and PayPal by specifying URLs for
redirection in various situations.