Terms, defined plainly.

Adaptive Pricing

Letting a customer pay in their own local currency while the merchant still settles in the currency they set the price in. Ultraner converts at a live rate automatically, the same way a card network converts currency behind an international card swipe.

Checkout session

A machine-minted, single-order checkout (token prefix cs_), created per order via the API, as opposed to a payment link a merchant curates by hand (token prefix pl_).

Cross-border transfer

Money moving from a wallet in one country to a wallet or account in another, on Ultraner's network, without routing through a foreign bank or a card network.

Disbursement

Money leaving an Ultraner wallet to an external mobile money or bank account, a payout. The one place Ultraner charges its own fee directly, a flat rate on top of whatever the underlying gateway charges.

Escrow

Holding a payer's funds until a condition is met (e.g. delivery confirmed) before releasing them to the seller, instead of crediting the seller immediately.

FX rate / FX API

The live exchange rate Ultraner uses to convert between a payer's currency and a merchant's settlement currency. Checkable at any time at ultraner.com/fx, and per transaction at ultraner.com/fx/{transactionId}.

Gateway

A payment processor Ultraner partners with to actually move money on a given rail, e.g. AzamPay, Pesapal, MalipoPay, Stripe, or PayPal. Ultraner's API auto-routes a request to the right one, a developer never integrates a gateway directly.

Interoperability

The ability for systems built independently, by different companies, to work together directly. Visa and Mastercard are the interoperability layer for banks; Ultraner is building the same layer for African mobile money networks.

Mobile money

A wallet tied to a phone number rather than a bank account, e.g. M-Pesa, Airtel Money, MTN MoMo, Mixx by Yas. The dominant way people transact in Africa, 95% of online payments on the continent move through it.

Network effect

Every additional network or country Ultraner connects makes every network already connected more valuable, since it becomes reachable from (and can reach) one more place. This is how a payment network compounds over time.

Payment link

A reusable, merchant-curated checkout URL (token prefix pl_) that can be shared, embedded, or reused across many customers, as opposed to a machine-minted checkout session created per order.

Streamline

Ultraner's connected-accounts feature: a platform business can onboard other businesses to sell through it, take a platform fee automatically, and manage their payouts, each connected business still fully KYC'd and verified in its own right.

Wallet

The account inside Ultraner that holds a balance, in one currency, that money is credited to and debited from. Every business and every individual login has their own.

Webhook

An HTTP request Ultraner sends to a URL a business registers, notifying it the moment something happens (a payment succeeds, a payout completes), signed with HMAC so the business can verify it actually came from Ultraner.