Platforms
The Platforms solution enables marketplaces, payment facilitators (PayFacs), and other platform-based businesses to onboard sub-entities and process payments on their behalf. A sub-entity refers to any seller, service provider, or business that needs to accept payments and receive payouts through your platform.
You can:
- Onboard sub-entities and process their payments.
- Split funds between your platform and sub-entities according to your business model.
- Make payouts to your sub-entities in their local currency and preferred payment method.
Your Platforms account is made up of the following resources:
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
Entity | Within your account, you have one or more legal entities within the group operating your platform across different jurisdictions, each having a contractual relationship with Checkout.com. For example, if you have separate legal entities for your European and North American operations, this is represented by two separate entities in your account, each with their own configurations. |
Sub-entity | A sub-entity is a merchant that sells on your platform. A platform can have one or more sub-entities. Sub-entities can be either a sole trader or an incorporated company. |
Currency account | A container of funds (similar to a digital wallet), in which you receive and hold funds in a specified currency. |
Marketplace | A platform that enables customers to complete transactions with multiple retailers on a single website or application. |
Payment facilitator (PayFac) | A third-party services provider that acts as an intermediary between merchants and payment processors. Unlike a marketplace, a PayFac connects one merchant to one customer at a time. |
Payment instrument | A set of bank account details securely stored in Checkout.com's Vault, which you can then use as a destination when making payouts. |
Processing channel | A processing channel is a container of settings that enable you to process payments for a specific industry. Industries are classified by merchant category codes (MCCs). A processing channel is required for each MCC you want to process payments under for your sub-entities. You must provide the processing channel when making payment requests. |
Company representative | Representatives are individuals that can make decisions on behalf of the company. They are shareholders or ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) who own 25% or more of the company or voting rights. If there are no UBOs with this amount of ownership, the representatives can be one or more individuals with the right to sign on behalf of the company (sometimes referred to as an authorized signatory). We require information about these representatives during onboarding. |