Payment methods: TWINT, cards, wallets and more

FlowAlp Pay bundles the payment methods that matter in Switzerland and beyond behind one integration: the hosted checkout shows your customers exactly the methods that are active on your account. This guide lists the available methods, explains how activation works in the dashboard, and shows how to restrict the selection for individual payments.

Available payment methods#

The following methods can be offered through FlowAlp Pay. The identifier in the right column is the value you pass in the pm parameter when creating a Gateway or a pay link.

How activation works#

Payment methods are activated per account in the FlowAlp Pay dashboard. Log in on your instance domain (https://tenantname.pay.flowalp.com) or via login.pay.flowalp.com, open the payment provider settings and enable the providers and methods you need. Some methods are ready after a few clicks, others require an acceptance contract or a verification step first — the steps are described in Activate payment methods.

• Every activated method automatically appears on the hosted checkout, on pay links and on QR codes.
• Read the active providers and methods of your instance programmatically via the payment providers endpoint.
• Run a test payment per method before going live — see Testing.

Restrict methods for a single payment#

By default the checkout offers everything that is active on your account. Two parameters on Gateways and pay links narrow this down per payment: psp takes an array of payment provider IDs (an empty array means all available providers), and pm takes an array of method identifiers to display. The identifiers passed in pm also let the checkout skip the initial method selection step.

curl -X POST "https://api.pay.flowalp.com/v1.16/Gateway/?instance=demo-shop" \
  -H "x-api-key: $FLOWALP_API_SECRET" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "amount": 4500,
    "currency": "CHF",
    "referenceId": "ORDER-2026-1043",
    "pm": ["twint", "visa", "mastercard"]
  }'

Typical uses: hide transfer-style methods for digital goods that need instant confirmation, offer only bank transfer to B2B customers, or present a single wallet on a mobile flow. The full payment flow is described in Accept a one-time payment.

Recommendations for Swiss merchants#

• Offer TWINT — it is the most widely used mobile payment method in Switzerland and pairs naturally with CHF pricing.
• Keep Visa and Mastercard enabled as the international baseline; Apple Pay and Google Pay reuse the same card rails and reduce friction on mobile.
• Add PayPal or Klarna if you serve customers in the EU.
• Charge Swiss customers in CHF; the currency field accepts ISO codes, so EUR or USD are equally possible where your market needs them.