Payment Facilitators & Gateways

An online shop needs a way to connect a customer’s purchase to a confirmed payment. In Iran, ZarinPal describes itself as a payment facilitator, or pardakht-yar, offering internet payment gateways and associated services to businesses. Its website advertises connections to multiple payment service providers, abbreviated PSPs, alongside routing, settlement, plugins, and developer tools. These are the provider’s descriptions of its offering; they do not independently establish transaction success rates or service reliability. s1

The distinction between the merchant service and the payment page matters. ZarinPal’s technical introduction describes a merchant as the seller of an online product or service and the buyer as a holder of a bank card belonging to the Shetab network. Its gateway documentation therefore concerns a particular domestic card-payment workflow. It does not establish acceptance of international cards. s2

ZarinPal’s connection guide separates checkout into stages. The merchant first sends a payment request containing its merchant identifier, an amount, a description, and a return address. A successful response supplies an Authority identifier that the merchant uses to redirect the buyer to payment. After the payment interaction, the buyer returns to the merchant’s callback address. s3

That return is an intermediate step. The guide requires the merchant to verify the transaction through a separate service before recording success. Verification supplies a payment reference that can support later financial tracing. The documentation also distinguishes a first successful verification from a subsequent verification of the same successful transaction. This distinction helps explain why returning to a confirmation page and creating a new paid order are separate operations. s3

The technical introduction places entry of confidential payment details on the payment gateway rather than the merchant’s website. It also distinguishes the request identifier from the reference supplied after successful completion. Keeping those roles clear makes the payment journey easier to understand: an identifier can refer to an attempted purchase before there is a confirmed financial result. s2

A documented ZarinPal checkout sequence

The diagram summarizes the published integration sequence. Its arrows represent requests and browser navigation, not interbank settlement or regulatory authority.

The inspected material shows how a facilitator packages checkout integration and related merchant services. ZarinPal also advertises daily settlement and plugins, which address different business needs from payment authorization itself. A checkout integration, a settlement promise, and a claim about improved sales should therefore be evaluated separately. s1

These sources provide a concrete technical example rather than a complete map of Iran’s payment industry. Current licensing, merchant eligibility, mandatory onboarding requirements, and settlement rules require dated regulatory evidence before this page can serve as a comprehensive account.