Montonio payments in an online store: step by step

In an Estonian online store, most customers pay by bank link: they pick their bank's logo, confirm the payment in their bank and come back to the shop. A very common way to offer this is Montonio — one contract that gives your online store bank links, card payments, Apple Pay and Google Pay. Montonio is widely used in Estonia and the other Baltic countries. This article explains how bank link payments work in an online store, how to set up Montonio step by step, and what to do when a payment doesn't go to plan.

How a bank link payment works

1. At checkout the customer picks a bank logo and places the order.
2. They're redirected to their bank and confirm the payment.
3. The payment provider sends the shop's server a confirmation that the money has been paid.
4. The customer returns to the shop's thank-you page.

Step 3 is the most important. An order must become paid on the server confirmation, not because the customer's browser came back to the shop. The browser may never return (the customer closed the window) or may return without paying (the customer pressed "Back" in the bank). If the shop trusts only the browser, you get paid orders nobody paid for — or the other way round.

Setting up Montonio step by step

1. Contract and keys. Sign a contract with Montonio and open their partner system. Under your shop there's a separate test (sandbox) and live (production) key pair, each consisting of two keys. Negotiate prices and contract terms directly with Montonio.

2. Choose payment methods. In the partner system you switch on the payment methods you want to offer: bank links, card, Apple Pay, Google Pay. The shop's checkout should show exactly those.

3. Test keys into the shop. Always start in the test environment. Enter the test keys and check the connection.

4. Test order. Place an order in the shop, choose a bank and pay on Montonio's test page — no money moves. Check that the order becomes paid within a few seconds and an invoice is created. Be sure to test cancelling too: press "Back" on the bank page and see what happens to the order.

5. Live payments. Switch the environment to live and enter the live keys. Check the connection again.

The most common mistake: the environment and the keys are from different pairs — test keys in the live environment or vice versa. If the connection says the keys were rejected, check this first.

What to do when a payment doesn't go to plan

The customer cancelled in the bank. The order must stay awaiting payment, and the customer must be able to pay again from the order page. If they don't pay, the goods reserved for them must be released automatically.

The customer paid, but the order is still "awaiting payment". The confirmation hasn't reached the shop. Check in the partner system whether the payment shows as paid there. Montonio retries the confirmation, so it usually resolves itself.

The payment arrived after the payment window expired. If the goods are still in stock, the order should be restored. If the goods have been sold in the meantime, the money has to be refunded.

The customer paid twice. This happens when they started two payment attempts in different windows. Refund one of them.

Refunds. Money is refunded in the Montonio partner system. After that, mark the order as refunded or cancelled in the shop so that the goods go back into stock and the reports add up.

How it works in NUNDINAE

Montonio is built into the NUNDINAE online store, and all the situations above have been thought through:

• Setup: Sales › Payment methods › Montonio — you enter the keys, click "Check connection" and see whether the keys match and which payment methods are shown at checkout. The environment (test or live) and the bank link country (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania or Finland) are in the settings.
• Keys are encrypted. Once saved, nobody can see them, not even the administrator. They can only be changed by entering new ones, and the change goes into the audit log.
• Paid only with confirmation. An order becomes paid only on Montonio's confirmation: then the invoice is created, the customer gets the invoice email and stock goes down. Marking an order as paid by hand isn't possible — that's blocked for security reasons.
• Goods reserved, then released. At checkout the goods are set aside for the customer. The payment window is 60 minutes by default and the Montonio payment link is valid for the same time; if the customer doesn't pay within it, the goods are released automatically.
• Cancelling: the order page has a choice of payment methods and a "Pay" button.
• Late payment: if the goods are still in stock, the order restores itself and becomes paid.
• Montonio down: bank transfer always stays available at checkout, so the order can still be placed.
• Every payment attempt is visible in the order view with its amount and status.

Because the online store and the stock are one application, the quantity of a paid order doesn't have to be carried over anywhere else — it comes off the same stock level the till sells from.

A gift card can cover part of the payment and a bank link the rest. If the bank payment fails, the amount taken from the gift card goes back onto the card. The same Montonio connection can also take a booking prepayment; within the free cancellation period it's refunded automatically. I wrote about that in no-shows and booking prepayments.

Summary

Bank links are the bare minimum for an Estonian online store, and setting up Montonio takes less time than signing the contract. Remember three things: start in the test environment, test cancelling too, and trust only the server confirmation. The next step after payments is shipping — see setting up shipping in an online store.

If you'd like an online store where payments, stock and shipping already work together, order NUNDINAE or ask for a demo.