Currencies

Every bill has a native currency — the currency the service provider raised it in. An account can have bills in more than one currency.

What the customer can pay in

Each service provider chooses the currencies it accepts; a lookup lists them in acceptedCurrencies. A payment in any other currency is refused:

{ "successful": false, "message": "Currency 'EUR' is not accepted by this service provider. Accepted currencies: USD, ZWG" }

If a lookup response has no acceptedCurrencies, pay in the bill’s own currency.

Asking for a currency

Every lookup takes an optional currency (a three-letter ISO 4217 code such as USD or ZWG):

• If the account has a bill in that currency, you get that bill.
• Otherwise you get the provider’s default bill, and — when the provider publishes an exchange rate — its amounts converted into the currency you asked for: conversionApplied: true, with convertedTotalAmount, convertedRemainingBalance, rate and rateDate. conversionIsIndicative: true means the figure is a guide, not a quote.
• otherCurrenciesAvailable lists the other currencies the account has bills in.

Paying in a different currency

UniPay never converts money. It records exactly what the customer tendered, and separately what obligation that payment settles:

1. The account has a bill in the payment currency: the payment settles that bill directly.
2. It doesn’t, the provider bills in a single currency, and it has an exchange rate for the payment date: the payment settles the bill, converted at the provider’s own rate. The rate is recorded with the payment.
3. Otherwise: the payment is still accepted and recorded, but not against a bill — money that has already left the customer is never turned away. The service provider resolves it through its own exceptions process.

The service provider sees both figures on every payment: what was tendered (amount, currency) and what it settled (allocatedAmount, allocatedCurrency, allocationRate) — see Collect payments.