Settlement & Files

Merchant settlement refers to the final step in a financial transaction where the transaction is completed and the funds are officially transferred between a customer and a merchant.

Settlement Process

• At the end of each day, the acquiring banks send mark-off files to the Payment Gateway. These files contain all the transactions that have completed successfully, since the last mark-off file was run. Transactions that were declined will not be included.
• The Payment Gateway performs a daily settlement process that updates transactions based on information received in the mark-off files. This process moves these transactions from a Processed to a Settled state once settlement has been completed.

There are 2 types of files that are involved in the settlement process:

1. Bank Mark-Off File

These are the files received from the acquiring banks which contain details of all successful transactions processed for payments through the Payment Gateway.
Merchants can request a mark-off file which can be accessed via SFTP (refer to section “Setting up an SFTP Account” below for information on setting this up). The format of this file is dependent on the merchant’s acquiring bank.
The Payment Gateway currently receives mark-off files from the following acquiring banks:

1. ABSA

2. Standard Bank

3. Nedbank

4. First National Bank
   
   

   Each acquiring bank has a different file format as detailed on the pages below.

2. Recon File

Ecentric can provide merchants with a Recon file that contains details of all transactions completed since the last recon file was processed. Recon files are typically run daily.

Please note that some transactions may miss the cut-off for the recon file batch process and will be included in the next day’s recon file.

Recon files are available in the OUT folder of the merchant's SFTP account (see details below for creating an SFTP account). There are two different versions of the recon with details of each shown below.

Setting up an SFTP Account

In order for us to create an account for you so that you can have access to our SFTP folder(s) and upload or collect your files, please provide us with the following details:

• Contact name and surname
• Email address
• Phone number
• Public key (as detailed in the Integration Guide, in .pub file format).

Once we receive your details, we will create an account and provide you with the following details:

• IP Address
• Username