Bancontact

Introduction

Bancontact uses a redirect-based payment flow. When a customer selects Bancontact at checkout, they are redirected to their bank's interface to authenticate and authorize the payment, then redirected back to your website or app upon completion. Bancontact is a single-use payment method where customers must authenticate each payment.

This guide explains the process of integrating Bancontact into your app or website using Payrails via Stripe.

Pre-requisites

Before you start accepting Bancontact payments with Payrails, there are a few requirements you must meet:

1. Integrate with Payrails using one of our SDKs or our API
2. Configure a new integration account for Bancontact via Stripe as a Payment Service Provider.
3. Enable Bancontact as a payment method in your Stripe integration configuration. In the Payrails portal, navigate to Settings → Integrations, select your Stripe integration instance, and enable the Bancontact checkbox under Payment methods, then save the account.
4. Enable Bancontact as a payment option in your workflow.
5. Make sure you're sending the Bancontact-specific required meta fields in your requests (see Required meta fields below).

Your use of Bancontact must be in accordance with Stripe's Bancontact Terms of Service.

Ways to integrate Bancontact

Payrails SDK

The simplest way to use Bancontact with Payrails is to use our drop-in in your checkout flow. With this integration type, no additional work is required to accept payments with Bancontact except for handling success/failure screens for your users.

For a more flexible implementation using our SDK, you can use our genericRedirectButton element. See special instructions here for your client-side implementation.

Server-to-server integration

You can integrate Bancontact by completely managing your own client-side implementation, and using Payrails APIs with a server-to-server integration to process Bancontact payments.

Parse Bancontact from lookup response

With a server-to-server integration, you can call our lookup payment options endpoint to get available payment options. As shown in the example below, you can see bancontact returned as an option of the paymentCompositionOptions.

{
  "name": "lookup",
  "actionId": "0bb6413e-cabb-4074-99e6-9e815c69f25b",
  "executedAt": "2026-03-26T12:00:00.000000000Z",
  "data": {
    "paymentCompositionOptions": [
      {
        "integrationType": "redirect",
        "paymentMethodCode": "bancontact",
        "description": "Bancontact"
      }
    ]
  },
  "links": {
    "execution": "https://api.payrails.io/merchant/workflows/payment-acceptance/executions/83c534ac-13b7-43e6-b04b-f3e8b4eb4424",
    "authorize": {
      "method": "POST",
      "href": "https://api.payrails.io/merchant/workflows/payment-acceptance/executions/83c534ac-13b7-43e6-b04b-f3e8b4eb4424/authorize"
    }
  }
}

Required meta fields

Bancontact requires the following fields to be present in every authorize request:

Pass Bancontact payment method in request to authorize payment with Payrails

You can then make a request to our authorize a payment endpoint with bancontact as the paymentMethodCode. See an example below:

{
  "executionId": "c0fd1c51-e709-47e5-bfd1-5d1c98f7d990",
  "amount": {
    "value": "2000",
    "currency": "EUR"
  },
  "paymentComposition": [
    {
      "integrationType": "redirect",
      "paymentMethodCode": "bancontact",
      "amount": {
        "value": "2000",
        "currency": "EUR"
      }
    }
  ],
  "meta": {
    "order": {
      "billingAddress": {
        "name": "Jan",
        "lastName": "Janssen",
        "country": {
          "code": "BE"
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "returnInfo": {
    "success": "https://mysuccessurl.com",
    "error": "https://myerrorurl.com"
  }
}

Note on amounts: EUR uses 2 decimal places. Amounts should be provided in the smallest currency unit — e.g., 2000 for €20.00.

Note: Bancontact is a redirect-based, single-use payment method. After calling the authorize endpoint, the customer will be redirected to their bank's interface to authenticate and confirm the payment. Once confirmed, the customer will be redirected back to the returnInfo.success URL. The refund period for Bancontact is up to 180 days after the original payment. There is no dispute process — customers authenticate directly with their bank.

Handle the redirect response

After the customer completes the payment, they will be redirected back to your success or error URL. You should then verify the payment status by checking the workflow execution status via the Payrails API or by listening to webhook notifications.

Supported currencies

Bancontact via Stripe supports the following presentment currency:

• EUR — Euro

Supported regions / countries

Customer regions

Bancontact is available to customers based in:

• Belgium 🇧🇪

Merchant regions

Stripe accounts in Europe, US, CA, NZ, SG, HK, JP, AU, and MX can accept Bancontact payments.

Supported workflows and services