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Introduction to the Zai platform

Zai is a powerful payments engine, custom-built for platforms and marketplaces. Reducing compliance, fraud, risk, staffing, and operational headaches, Zai helps you focus on what matters most: your business.

The main component objects of the Zai API are Users, Accounts, Items, and Fees.

Items

The Item represents the good, asset, or service being purchased on your platform or marketplace and acts as the conduit for payment and disbursement of funds from and to your users.

Items require two Users, a buyer and seller, and also the Fees that you want to charge the parties involved.

Once the Item is configured, actions facilitate the flow of funds from the buyer to the seller and to your platform.

Fees

Zai provides a mechanism for you to charge surcharges and/or success fees for each Item that is bought and sold on your platform:

  • Buyer/Seller fees - These can be called success fees and relate specifically to the good, asset, or service bought and sold.

  • Payment Surcharge - These can be a surcharge for the payment method of the buyer. For example: a credit card surcharge.

  • Disbursement Fee - These can be charged for international wire disbursements, and Fees can be charged for domestic Direct Credit, real-time (NPP/Osko), or BPAY disbursements.

Zai takes care of collection and disbursement of the Fees when the Item funds are released.

Users

Zai is perfect for multi-party transactions. The parties involved in a typical transaction are the buyer, seller, your platform, and Zai. Zai also caters for transactions which include multiple buyers or multiple sellers, including brokers.

The parties you need to create and manage are buyers and sellers. Zai uses a single object called a User to manage both roles. As such, a User can be a buyer in one transaction and a seller in another.

Accounts

To make a payment, a buyer requires either a bank account, a card account (credit/debit card) or a funded Zai wallet account.

For a seller to receive funds, they require a bank account which also needs to be set as the User’s disbursement account.

  • Bank Account - A bank account can be used as both a payment method and a disbursement method.

  • Card Account - Card accounts can be used as a payment method. Card details are stored in a secure vault and are tokenized for future payments.

  • Wallet Account - Wallet accounts can be funded by a bank account or from the proceeds of other transactions. As such, wallet accounts can be used as a payment method. Wallet accounts are also the default disbursement account for all Users.