How to save Credit card with Paypal without Paypal account?

Question

I need to implement the payment transactions with paypal account and credit/debit card using paypal on my mobile application (Android and iOS SDK's).

In one hand I understand the part of having a paypal account and paying with it, but in the other hand I took a look at Uber and I found that the users can save their credit card without creating a paypal account. How can I achieve this behavior? Do I have to save this credit cards on my server? or is this a feature of Paypal?

PD: I already know Uber uses BrainTree, but I have seen the same feature on other apps with Paypal.

Answer 1

What you're looking for is called "reference transactions" or "vaulted credit cards". PayPal saves the card data on their server, and then you just save the transaction ID on your server. When you submit a reference transaction request you just include the transaction ID from the original transaction you processed (could be an Auth or Sale transaction) along with the new amount you need to process.

Depending on what you're using to process the cards, though, the API you would use for the reference / vaulted transaction would be different.

If you're using Payments Pro you would be using either DoDirectPayment / DoReferenceTransaction or the PayFlow API setup as a reference transaction .

If you're working with REST that's where the vaulted transactions would come into play.