eSewa

eSewa wallet and bank payments in Nepal

eSewa is a widely used digital wallet in Nepal. The eSewa plugin lets them pay for a booking from their eSewa wallet or a linked bank account, into your own eSewa merchant account.

Like the other Nepali gateways, eSewa charges in Nepali rupees only. It appears at checkout for tours priced in NPR; the status panel warns you if your website sells in another currency, and the Currency switcher adds NPR.

Signed forms and signed answers

At checkout Tourtify builds an eSewa ePay form for the booking total and signs it with your secret key. The signed form is valid for 30 minutes. The traveller pays on eSewa's site and is sent back to your website.

When they return, Tourtify checks eSewa's signature on the response and that it belongs to this payment, then asks eSewa's transaction status API for the final word. COMPLETE confirms the booking. AMBIGUOUS is flagged for your team and checked again. CANCELED closes the payment so the traveller can try again.

If the traveller doesn't return, Tourtify keeps checking every few minutes. A payment eSewa reports as not found is only closed once the signed form has had time to expire, so a slow payment isn't lost.

Testing with eSewa's UAT environment

eSewa publishes a test merchant for its UAT environment: merchant code EPAYTEST with a published test secret. Connect those in Test mode and payments go to rc-epay.esewa.com.np, where no real money moves.

eSewa has no endpoint for checking keys, so Tourtify checks that the merchant code is known by asking for the status of a payment that doesn't exist. Live mode refuses EPAYTEST, so you can't go live on the test merchant by mistake.

Refunds

eSewa refunds are made through your eSewa merchant portal. Refund the traveller there, then choose "I refunded it in the provider's dashboard" on the booking so Tourtify records it.

Setting up eSewa

1. 1Start in Test mode. On the Payments page, enter merchant code EPAYTEST and eSewa's published UAT secret (shown in the field's help text), and choose Test.
2. 2Price a tour in NPR. Give the tours you want to sell locally an NPR price, adding NPR with the Currency switcher if needed.
3. 3Try a UAT payment. Book a test trip, pay on eSewa's UAT page and check the booking confirms when you return.
4. 4Get your merchant code. When eSewa approves your merchant account, it gives you your own merchant (product) code and secret key.
5. 5Switch to Live. Update the code and secret key and choose Live. Payments then go to epay.esewa.com.np.