How payments work

Every Pesepay payment — regardless of method — follows the same shape:

Your server → Pesepay Create the transaction encrypted payload
Pesepay → Your server referenceNumber store it now
Customer → Pesepay Customer pays hosted page, or your UI
Pesepay → Payment provider Processes the payment
Payment provider → Pesepay Outcome
Pesepay → Your server Result callback
Your server → Pesepay Confirm the status
Pesepay Settles to your account

The lifecycle of a Pesepay transaction

Your server creates a transaction with an amount, currency, and reason for payment, encrypts it, and sends it to Pesepay.
The customer pays through one of two flows: they’re redirected to a Pesepay-hosted page (redirect flow), or you collect their payment method details and submit them directly (seamless flow).
Pesepay processes the payment with the relevant provider (EcoCash, a card network, a bank, etc).
Your server finds out the result — either pushed to you via the result callback, or pulled by checking status with the referenceNumber.
Funds settle to your payout account roughly T+2 days after the transaction completes.

Reference number: your source of truth

Every transaction gets a referenceNumber the moment it’s created. Store it against your order/invoice immediately — it’s what ties together the initiation request, the result callback, and any status checks you make later. See the transaction result fields.

Picking a flow

	Redirect flow	Seamless flow
Where the customer enters payment details	Pesepay’s hosted page	Your own UI
PCI/compliance surface on your servers	Minimal	Larger — you handle method-specific fields
Best for	Fastest to ship	Fully branded checkout

Redirect flow → · Seamless flow →

Either flow can settle part of each payment to a second merchant automatically — see Split payments.