USSD

Ideal for: Reaching customers on feature phones, or anyone without a card or reliable data. The customer dials a short code from the phone their bank knows. This payment method allows you to collect payments offline from your customers. Payment is completed by the customer dialling a USSD code on their mobile device.

How it works

To initiate a USSD payment, make a request to the USSD payments service with the payments/initiates endpoint.
When the request is made you are expected to get a dial code.
Customer completes transactions using the USSDdial code generated
Verify the payment

Before you use these endpoints

These endpoints are for merchants who want to build their own checkout. You collect the payment details in your own interface and send them to SeerBit, deciding for yourself how the payment experience looks. If you would rather not build and maintain that, use Simple Checkout or Standard Checkout instead — SeerBit renders the payment interface, supports every method, and takes on the compliance burden.

You calculate the fee, not SeerBit

The hosted checkout works out the transaction fee and shows it to the customer. These endpoints do not. SeerBit charges exactly the amount you send. So if your dashboard is set so the customer bears the fee, you must calculate that fee and include it yourself. If you don’t, the fee comes out of your settlement instead — you will receive less than you charged.

Fee bearer	Hosted checkout	These endpoints
Merchant	Send your amount; the fee is deducted at settlement	Send your amount; the fee is deducted at settlement
Customer	Checkout adds the fee for you	You add the fee yourself

Set the fee bearer in your dashboard settings, and see transaction fees for how the two models differ.

How methods are selected

Every payment method uses the same endpoint — what changes is the paymentType you send and the extra fields that method needs.

POST https://seerbitapi.com/api/v2/payments/initiates

Method	`paymentType`	Extra fields
Card	`CARD`	`cardNumber`, `cvv`, `expiryMonth`, `expiryYear`, `pin`
Transfer	`TRANSFER`	—
USSD	`USSD`	`bankCode`
Mobile money	`MOMO`	`network`, `voucherCode`
Bank account	`ACCOUNT`	`clientAppCode`, `redirectUrl`

Authentication

All payment method calls are authenticated with a bearer token, generated from your public and secret keys.

POST https://seerbitapi.com/api/v2/encrypt/keys

Authentication

How to generate the token, and which credential every other SeerBit API expects.

Initialising a USSD Payment

For the full specification, see our API Reference POST

https://seerbitapi.com/api/v2/payments/initiates

Request Sample

The code snippet below shows an example request for initialising this payment

curl --location 'https://seerbitapi.com/api/v2/payments/initiates' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ENCRYPTED_KEY' \
--data-raw '{
    "publicKey":"YOUR_PUBLIC_KEY",
    "amount":"100",
    "fullName": "FirstName LastName",
    "mobileNumber": "customer mobile number",
    "email":"firstname@mail.com",
    "currency": "NGN",
    "country": "NG",
    "paymentReference": "dsffererer",
    "callbackUrl": "http://yourdomain.com",
    "redirectUrl": "http://yourdomain.com",
    "paymentType": "USSD",
    "bankCode":"044"
  }'

var request = require('request');
var options = {
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://seerbitapi.com/api/v2/payments/initiates',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    Authorization: 'Bearer YOUR_ENCRYPTED_KEY'
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    publicKey: 'YOUR_PUBLIC_KEY',
    amount: '100',
    fullName: 'FirstName LastName',
    mobileNumber: 'customer mobile number',
    email: 'firstname@mail.com',
    currency: 'NGN',
    country: 'NG',
    paymentReference: 'dsffererer',
    callbackUrl: 'http://yourdomain.com',
    redirectUrl: 'http://yourdomain.com',
    paymentType: 'USSD',
    bankCode: '044'
  })
};
request(options, function (error, response) {
  if (error) throw new Error(error);
  console.log(response.body);
});

<?php

$curl = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($curl, array(
  CURLOPT_URL => 'https://seerbitapi.com/api/v2/payments/initiates',
  CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
  CURLOPT_ENCODING => '',
  CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS => 10,
  CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 0,
  CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true,
  CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION => CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1,
  CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST => 'POST',
  CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS =>'{
    "publicKey":"YOUR_PUBLIC_KEY",
    "amount":"100",
    "fullName": "FirstName LastName",
    "mobileNumber": "customer mobile number",
    "email":"firstname@mail.com",
    "currency": "NGN",
    "country": "NG",
    "paymentReference": "dsffererer",
    "callbackUrl": "http://yourdomain.com",
    "redirectUrl": "http://yourdomain.com",
    "paymentType": "USSD",
    "bankCode":"044"
  }',
  CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => array(
    'Content-Type: application/json',
    'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ENCRYPTED_KEY'
  ),
));

$response = curl_exec($curl);

curl_close($curl);
echo $response;

Response Sample

The code snippet below shows an example request for initialising this payment

{
  "status": "SUCCESS",
  "data": {
    "code": null,
    "payments": {
      "paymentReference": "dsffererer",
      "linkingReference": "CSEERBIT724622561618580872054",
      "providerreference": "8206",
      "ussdDailCode": "*901*000*8206#"
    },
    "message": null
  }
}

Get Started

Accept Payments

Payment Methods

After a Payment

Payouts & Wallets

Platforms & Marketplaces

In-Store Payments

Reference

How it works

Before you use these endpoints

You calculate the fee, not SeerBit

How methods are selected

Authentication

Authentication

Initialising a USSD Payment

Request Sample

Response Sample

​How it works

​Before you use these endpoints

​You calculate the fee, not SeerBit

​How methods are selected

​Authentication

Authentication

​Initialising a USSD Payment

​Request Sample

​Response Sample

How it works

Before you use these endpoints

You calculate the fee, not SeerBit

How methods are selected

Authentication

Initialising a USSD Payment

Request Sample

Response Sample