Refund

Table of Contents
Refund Definition...............................................................................................................4
Refund process...................................................................................................................4
Refund Methods........................................................................................................................4
Online refund.............................................................................................................................................. 4
Offline refund..............................................................................................................................................4
Refund Scenarios........................................................................................................................4
Scenario 1: Refund initiated by merchant / requested by cardholder.......................................................4

Steps to initiate Refund......................................................................................................5

Challenges.........................................................................................................................8
Scenario 2: Refund initiated by IppoPay for failed transactions................................................................8
Scenario 3: Refund request received from Merchant for Full / Partial Amount........................................9
Refund Definition
A refund is a transaction where the fund is moved back to the Cardholder /Customer from merchant
for a sale completed transaction. Refunds can be initiated by merchant for various reasons such as
cancellation of service, product, unable to render service, service/products defective etc.

Refund process
As a payment aggregator, for IppoPay has implemented webhooks API integrated system wherein the
Merchant can get the real time transaction status. The IppoPay has developed adequate monitoring
systems so that the refunds are handled without impacting the end customers in such circumstances.
Thus, it encourages all its merchants to receive the status of each payment through both a website
level integration and on their servers through webhooks APIs, especially for failed transactions.

Refund Methods

Online refund

The Merchant checks the validity of the request done by customer. Post analysis, merchant
initiates a refund request for the transaction through API assigned to them.

In this online refund there is no need of manual interventions, it gets credited in cardholder
account through API’s

Offline refund

If merchant is not able to process a refund through assigned APIs, then Merchant can request
for offline refund with the IppoPay.

Merchant will share the details of refund & IppoPay will raise this request manually with the
Bank & Bank will proceed further to credit back in cardholder account.

The acquiring bank communicates with the issuing bank (the bank in which the customer
account/ Card is held) which was used for the payment and raise a refund request.

The issuing bank receives the amount and passes it on to the customer’s account/ Card
account.

Upon completion of this process, refund will reflect in the customer’s account/ Card balance.
The set-up of refund depends on the issuing bank and acquiring bank’s capability to facilitate
online refunds via APIs.

Refund Scenarios
The IppoPay has a comprehensive refund process where in any refund transactions are currently
processed in either of the following scenarios: -

Scenario 1: Refund initiated by merchant / requested by cardholder

In this situation, the customer transacts successfully on the Merchant’s platform and purchase certain
goods/services for which payment is made.
However, due to some reasons, like delivery of goods/services not being made or quality of
goods/services being poor, the customer/card holder places a refund request or merchant proactively
initiates a refund. To process a refund merchant may choose online or offline refund method.

Steps to initiate Refund

1. Merchant can login using IppoPay Portal by using register email id and password at the time of
login.

2. After login merchant can directly route Merchant Dashboard.

3. Merchant needs to select the Transaction tab to process refund.

4. Once the transaction list generates into the system, merchant needs to select the transaction
which he wants to process the refund.
5. Here merchant can select the amount which he wanted to process from his end, merchant can
do partial refund also and then need to click refund option.

6. After merchant processed the refund from his end, the said request received in IppoPay
Admin panel in Refund List tab.

7. Here we need to check the transaction by using Transaction ID or Refund ID. To initiate the
refund, after successful validation done, we need to click Process refund option.

8. Once transaction is push for refund then refund amount will settled within next 24hrs to
customer account.
Challenges
1. We need to check with our technical team for merchant segregation to find out the specific
refunds (Online / Offline). Ex – In our system currently Gaming merchant and other
merchant’s refunds are in same list, we are unable to find out the refund id if merchant didn’t
update us that he processed the refund from his end.
In Such scenarios if we missed such refund request then it will lead to chargeback and further
merchant Escalations.

2. No refund ARN is available into the system for successful refund, we have to check with our
accounts team whether the refund successful or not.
We also need to check after successful refund processed is there any successful refund
notification received or not.

Scenario 2: Refund initiated by IppoPay for failed transactions

In this situation, the customer tries to complete a transaction by making payment on the merchant’s
platform, but the payment shows up as failed. However, the customer bank account is debited.

It is important to understand the impact of failed payments on refunds. Once the 2FA (2- Factor
authentication) is completed, a payment request is made to the issuing bank which accepts the
payment request and debits the required amount from the customer’s account. The issuing bank then
confirms to the acquiring bank on the status of the payment. If payment is successful at aggregator or
on any Bank Payment Gateway & failed at IppoPay end then IppoPay will proactively refund this
transaction to the cardholder to avoid the chargeback.

If the above communication chain fails at any of the step after the customer account has been charged,
the payment fails, and the customer has a legitimate case of seeking a refund. There are various
reasons mentioned above but the most prominent one is network connectivity. Until all steps are
complete, the customer’s device needs to be connected to the internet for the customer to be notified.

When a transaction status is shown as failed, IppoPay has an option to check via Webhooks API if the
transaction has failed then IppoPay should initiate the refund immediately.

1 For such cases we can find out after doing the daily reconciliation from our end

2 In this case we will check the transactions into the Aggregator reports and compare with
Banking reports or settlement reports received from settlement team / accounts team.

3 If Transaction is successful at Aggregators / Bank end and failed at IppoPay end then we have
to highlight such transactions to settlement team / accounts team to cross check if we received
any funds against such transaction or not.

4 If Payment team confirms we have received the funds for such transactions we need to
proactively refund these transactions to customer account to avoid the chargebacks and
further customer escalations.

5 Also, we need to update the Settlement team / accounts team to do not process the settlement
against such transactions to the merchant.

6 After successfully refund processed and confirm by the accounts team that funds have been
settled to customers bank account, we need to update the refund ARN into the same to the
merchant with UTR details for their acknowledgement.
Scenario 3: Refund request received from Merchant for Full / Partial Amount

In this situation, Customer paid amount extra to the Merchant for Goods or services provided by the
merchant. In such cases if Merchant is denying or not accepting the Customers request then customer
can raise query to his issuing bank.

If we receive such query / refund request then we need to check with the merchant for the transaction
details and type of service he provided to the customer. If a query is genuine then we need to transfer
the partial amount to the Customer issuing bank.

1. For such scenarios we will receive the refund request from the merchant end from merchant
register email id with transaction details and refund amount.

2. Once we received the request, we will check first if we received any chargeback for the same
transaction or not, if we received the chargeback then we need to process the chargeback and
inform the merchant that we are unable to process the refund from our end and amount will be
settled to customers bank account.

3. If chargeback is not received then the transaction in admin panel to cross check if merchant
provided details correct or not.

4. Once the transaction validation part is completed then we need to process the refund from our
end and update the refund transaction id to the merchant.

5. After successfully refund processed and confirm by the accounts team that funds have been
settled to customers bank account, we need to update the same to the merchant with UTR
details for their acknowledgement.