Himalayan Bank

Foreign cards for a business in Nepal

Many trekking and tour companies in Nepal sell mostly to visitors from abroad, and those visitors expect to pay by card. Stripe and PayPal don't pay out to Nepali bank accounts, so card payments have to go through a local bank. The Himalayan Bank plugin connects your own HBL e-commerce merchant account and takes Visa and Mastercard cards from anywhere in the world, as well as Nepali cards. The money is paid into your HBL account; Tourtify never holds it.

It works next to your other payment options. A common set-up is Himalayan Bank for card payers from abroad and a Nepali wallet such as Khalti, eSewa or NPS for domestic travellers, all on the same checkout.

Nepali rupees and US dollars

Himalayan Bank takes payments in NPR and USD, so it appears at checkout only for tours priced in one of them. If your website's main currency is something else, the plugin's status panel says so: add NPR or USD with the Currency switcher and give the tours you want to sell this way a price in it.

The amount is sent to HBL exactly as checkout showed it, in the booking's currency, so a tour priced in US dollars is charged in US dollars.

Signed and encrypted, both ways

Himalayan Bank's card platform runs on 2C2P PACO. At checkout Tourtify creates the payment with PACO in a request signed with your private signing key and encrypted with HBL's public key. The traveller is sent to PACO's hosted payment page, enters their card there and completes 3-D Secure with their own bank. Card details never touch your website or Tourtify, and cards aren't saved, so balances are paid through a payment link.

Every answer from HBL is decrypted with your private decryption key and its signature is checked against HBL's signing key. Tourtify also checks that the answer was issued by PACO, is meant for your account and hasn't expired. An answer that fails any of these checks is rejected.

Confirmed by transaction inquiry, not by the browser

When the traveller comes back to your website, Tourtify doesn't rely on the return link. It asks HBL's transaction inquiry about the order and reads the signed answer. An authorised or settled payment confirms the booking; HBL settles authorised payments in its daily batch.

If the traveller closes the page before returning, Tourtify checks again every five minutes for up to 26 hours. A declined card isn't the end: the traveller can try another card on HBL's page. A payment that is still declined, voided or not started after 90 minutes is closed, so the traveller can start again.

Refunds from the booking

Full and partial refunds are made from the booking page and sent straight to HBL's refund API. HBL allows one refund per payment, so once part of a payment has been refunded, a second refund on it is refused.

When HBL refuses a refund, Tourtify shows HBL's reason. Refund the traveller from your HBL merchant portal instead, then choose "I refunded it in the provider's dashboard" on the booking so the traveller's balance and your reports stay correct.

Test keys first

HBL sends test keys before live ones. In Test mode payments go to PACO's demo environment and no real money moves; Live uses PACO's production environment. PACO has no call for checking keys, so when you connect, Tourtify checks that the Office ID and key ID have the right form and that each of the four keys is a valid RSA key. Your first test payment proves them with HBL.

Setting up Himalayan Bank

1. 1Ask for a merchant account. Ask Himalayan Bank for an e-commerce merchant account. HBL sets you up on 2C2P PACO and gives you an Office ID and an API key.
2. 2Exchange keys. Generate two RSA key pairs, one for signing and one for encryption, and register their public halves with HBL. HBL sends back its own encryption and signing public keys and the 32-character encryption key ID.
3. 3Connect in Test mode. On the Payments page, add Himalayan Bank, choose Test and paste the Office ID, API key, key ID and the four keys. The BEGIN and END lines are optional.
4. 4Make a test booking. Give a tour an NPR or USD price, book it and pay with a test card, then check the booking confirms.
5. 5Switch to Live. Update the keys with the live set from HBL and choose Live.