What Is Merchant Of Record?
How the Kyshi model works, who the seller of record is, and what it means for your integration.
Kyshi acts as the Merchant of Record and local payments layer for supported markets, enabling customers to pay locally while your business receives settlement in its preferred currency.
Read this page before you choose an integration flow. Most of the decisions on the rest of this site follow from it.
Seller Of Record And Merchant Of Record
Kyshi acts as the Merchant of Record for supported transactions. This means Kyshi is the entity that facilitates the local sale and payment collection in the relevant market, handles applicable payment, compliance, and tax obligations, and then settles funds to your business in the agreed settlement currency.
Your business remains responsible for the products or services it provides, including:
- product delivery and fulfilment
- customer experience and support
- refunds and returns policy, where applicable
- any commercial obligations agreed with your customers
Kyshi provides the Merchant of Record and payment infrastructure that enables your business to sell locally, collect in local currencies, and receive settlement in its preferred currency.
On the integration side, this means you should still verify payment server-side before releasing goods or access, and keep your own records reconciled against Kyshi's. Never release value on a client-side signal.
What Kyshi Handles
For your integration, the model has three practical consequences:
You price in one currency and collect in many. A customer in Lagos pays in NGN, a customer in Nairobi pays in KES, and you can keep thinking in USD. See Countries And Currencies.
The money you collect is not immediately the money you receive. A collection lands in a local balance, fees are deducted, FX is applied, and the result is settled to you as a batch. See Settlements.
Fees are itemised and can be passed on. Kyshi returns a breakdown of every component, and you choose whether your business or your customer absorbs it. See Fees And Who Pays Them.
What This Means When You Build
| You want to | With Kyshi |
|---|---|
| Sell into a new African market | Enable the currency. You do not need a local entity or bank account. |
| Price consistently across markets | Set amountCurrency to settlement and let Kyshi convert at collection time. |
| Charge an exact local amount | Set amountCurrency to local and specify localCurrency. |
| Know what you will actually receive | Read meta.settlementAmount and meta.feeBreakdown on the transaction. |
| Reconcile your bank statement | Match against settlement batches, not individual transactions. |
The last row is the one most integrations get wrong. Kyshi settles in batches, so a single line on your bank statement corresponds to many transactions. If your finance system expects one payout per sale, it will not reconcile. See Settlements.
VAT And Fees
Fees are configured per market and currency, per payment channel, per transaction type, and where applicable per provider or rail.
The transaction fee breakdown can include:
{
"fee": 57,
"vat": 180,
"processorFee": 0,
"totalFees": 237
}VAT is included as part of the applicable transaction fee breakdown where configured.
Fees, including VAT where applicable, can be borne by either party:
feeBearer | Effect |
|---|---|
CUSTOMER | The customer pays the transaction fees in addition to the transaction amount. |
MERCHANT | The merchant absorbs the transaction fees, and they are deducted from the amount settled or credited to the merchant. |
This is controlled by the fee bearer setting on the transaction or payment configuration. See Fees And Who Pays Them.
Receipts
Kyshi generates the technical payment and transfer receipt. That receipt identifies the merchant or business connected to the transaction.
Your business remains responsible for the underlying goods or services, so any commercial documentation relating to what was sold — delivery confirmation, service terms, returns handling — is yours to issue.
Next
- Countries And Currencies — where you can collect and how you can be paid
- How The Kyshi API Works — conventions that apply to every endpoint
- Getting Started — pick a product flow
Updated about 20 hours ago