The Payment APIs and Collection APIs currently use different protocols and authentication mechanisms. In most cases, you will need to integrate with both APIs, so this section discusses the high-level differences between them.

API Differences

Compare the main feature and technology differences between the Payment APIs and the Collection APIs.

	Payment APIs	Collection APIs
Protocol	SOAP	REST
Usually used by	Mobile Network Operators Money Transfer Organizations	Merchants E-commerce use-cases Bi-directional use-cases
Includes portal access	Access reports in Portal	Access reports in Portal Initiate transactions in Portal
Supports funds disbursements	Sync or Async	Async Only
Supports funds collections	No	Yes
Supports forex rates retrieval	Yes	No
Supports Webhooks (IPNS)	Yes	Yes
Supports retrieval of other objects	Account Balance Only	Account Balances, Contacts, Transactions, Currencies, Networks, Banks, Events and others
Includes client libraries	No	Yes