Payouts

Learn how to send funds from your Acquired.com managed account.

The Acquired.com Payouts solution allows you to send funds instantly to a customer's bank account using the Faster Payments Network. We offer a real-time service via API to let you know the outcome of sending funds immediately.


Create a payee

A payee is the beneficiary or recipient that receives the funds of your payout transaction. This API endpoint is used to create a payee resource and store the payee's bank details (sort code, account number, account name) for executing the payment.

All payee's must be stored against an existing customer_id, if the customer doesn't already exist you will need to create one first. (View our API reference customer documentationhere). Pass the customer_id within your POST request.

When you submit a request to create a payee, you will be returned a payee_id in the response. This payee_id can then be passed in the pay-out request.

See the below request example:

POST/customers/{customer_id}/payees

{
  "sort_code": "010203",
  "account_number": "12345678",
  "account_name": "MR E JOHNSON"
}

Example of a successful response:

{
  "status": "success",
  "payee_id": "4ebc5489-7b9f-4324-983e-07d4b2b00035"
}

Example of a 400 error response:

{
    "status": "error",
    "error_type": "validation",
    "title": "Your request parameters did not pass our validation.",
    "instance": "/v1/customers/payee",
    "invalid_parameters": [
        {
            "parameter": "sort_code",
            "reason": "sort_code format is invalid, should be ^[0-9]{1,6}$"
        }
    ]
}

Process a payout

You can initiate a payout to a recipient’s bank account using the /pay-out endpoint. This enables a faster payment from your Acquired-managed account.

There are two supported approaches to provide payee details:

Option 1: Payout using a payee_id

Use this method if you have already created and stored a payee resource.

POST /pay-out

{
  "transaction": {
    "order_id": "1f1f2a61-5b68-4725-a0ce-9560514ec00b",
    "amount": 15.02,
    "currency": "gbp"
  },
  "payment": {
    "payee_id": "4ebc5489-7b9f-4324-983e-07d4b2b00035",
    "reference": "Custom Ref 001"
  }
}

Option 2: Payout by providing payee details directly

Use this method to make a one-off payment without creating or storing a payee.

POST /pay-out

{
  "transaction": {
    "order_id": "1f1f2a61-5b68-4725-a0ce-9560514ec00b",
    "amount": 15.02,
    "currency": "gbp"
  },
  "payment": {
    "sort_code": "010203",
    "account_number": "12345678",
    "account_name": "MR E JOHNSON",
    "reference": "Custom Ref 001"
  },
  "webhook_url": "https://yourdomain.com/webhook"
}

Response

In both cases, the response will return a transaction_id and an initial status of pending. You can use this ID to track the transaction via webhook notifications.

{
  "status": "pending",
  "transaction_id": "bd3fbbcd-411e-4760-8a9f-7af420d26314"
}

Validation rules

ScenarioOutcome
Only payee_id is providedAccepted
Only sort_code, account_number, and account_name was providedAccepted
Both payee_id and payee details are providedRejected - only one method is allowed per request
Neither method is providedRejected - payee information is required

Webhook notifications

Acquired.com will send status_update webhook notifications to the webhook_url passed in your payout request or configured in the Hub. This will contain detail of the current status of the payout as it transitions through the transaction lifecycle.

View our webhook documentation here.