Powering Online Marketplaces with Pay by Bank

Online marketplaces face challenges with delayed funds, high transaction costs from card payments and the risks of managing sensitive financial data. Dwolla addresses these issues by offering faster pay-by-bank payments and a secure infrastructure that can improve efficiency, profitability and trust.

Complex Payments Cost More Than You Think

Marketplaces frequently encounter challenges when integrating payment functionalities, impacting efficiency, financial health and relationships with owners and tenants.

1. Money Movement Challenges
   Online marketplaces struggle with delayed access to funds, transaction costs and the risks associated with storing sensitive financial data.

2. Delayed Payments
   Lag time between buyer payments and when those funds become available to the marketplace (and subsequently to sellers) can negatively impact cash flow and vendor satisfaction.

3. High Transaction Fees
   Fees associated with card payments can make it challenging to offer competitive pricing to buyers or attractive commission rates to sellers without sacrificing profitability.

4. Security Concerns
   Threats targeting sensitive payment data necessitate investments in security and compliance to help avoid financial penalties, legal repercussions and damage to the marketplace's reputation.

“The sophistication of Dwolla’s technology builds trust within our marketplace community and the experience really validates us as a player in this space.”
Goods & Apparel Marketplace COO/Co Founder

The Benefits of Dwolla's Pay-by-Bank Solution

Dwolla's API-powered automation helps reduce costs, improve cash flow, and provide real-time payment tracking while offering access to instant payment networks for faster, more efficient payouts.

Improved Experiences through Faster Payments

Quicker transfer of funds through Dwolla’s pay-by-bank payments can accelerate the marketplace's cash flow and enable faster payouts to sellers, enhancing seller satisfaction and potentially attracting more vendors to the platform.

• Use pay-by-bank payment methods (particularly real-time payments) and automation through Dwolla's API to speed up payment processes and accelerate cash flow.
• Enable faster payouts by allowing sellers to easily verify their bank accounts within seconds through Dwolla’s Open Banking Services.

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Reduce Costs and Improve Profitability

Dwolla’s unified API provides access to automated pay-by-bank payments that can offer lower transaction fees compared to card payments, reducing costs especially at scale and improving the bottom line and buyer and seller experiences.

• Connect to pay-by-bank payment rails including cost-effective ACH and faster payment options, such as Same Day ACH and instant payments via the RTP® network and FedNow® Service.
• Gain a competitive advantage when attracting buyers and sellers by passing on cost savings as lower prices and/or higher commission rates.

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Enhanced Security and Reduced Fraud

Partnering with Dwolla allows you to leverage our expertise and secure infrastructure. You don’t need to store sensitive pay-by-bank data on your platform, and we provide Open Banking Services to help you reduce risk.

• Protect payments data with a variety of enterprise-grade security measures, including encryption and tokenization.
• Employ tokenization to store and transmit account and routing numbers with a token instead of having to pass the numbers themselves every time a payment is made.
• Use open banking features like instant account verification and real-time balance check to help reduce the risk of returns and fraudulent transactions.

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Examples of How the Money Moves

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Marketplace-to-Seller Payouts

The marketplace transfers seller earnings directly from its bank account to the seller's bank account using pay-by-bank payments.

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Refunds and Returns

After a customer returns an item, the marketplace processes the refund transparently by initiating a pay-by-bank transfer back to the customer's linked bank account.

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Direct Payments from Sellers to Buyers

Payments can go directly from buyers to sellers without involving the online marketplace platform in the payment flow, helping to reduce regulatory and compliance risk.

Automate your payments in as little as ten days.

Dwolla's full-service approach replaces legacy payments technology with a single solution, improving security, data visibility and the customer experience.

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Key Benefits

What changes for your team

Multi-Party Payment Flows

Handle buyer-to-platform, platform-to-seller, and platform-fee flows through a single API. Each leg tracked independently with full visibility.

Automated Seller Payouts

Disburse earnings to sellers automatically based on your payout schedule. Individual or mass payouts with per-payment tracking.

Flexible Payout Timing

Standard ACH for routine payouts, Same Day ACH for priority sellers, and real-time options for instant access. Match seller expectations to your cost model.

Seller Onboarding

Bank verification, identity checks, and tokenization during seller onboarding. Verified sellers reduce payment failures and fraud risk.

How It Works

From integration to production

1. Design your marketplace flows
   Map buyer payments, seller disbursements, platform fees, and any intermediary holding periods to Dwolla's API.

2. Onboard your participants
   Use Dwolla's verification and onboarding flows for buyers and sellers. Verified accounts from day one reduce downstream issues.

3. Automate at scale
   As your marketplace grows, payment operations scale with you. Mass Pay handles seller disbursements; webhooks keep your systems in sync.

Trusted by platforms and enterprises

25M+ End users served
126M+ Annual transactions
99.9% Platform uptime

Scale your marketplace payments

See how Dwolla helps marketplace platforms automate multi-party payment flows with reliable seller payouts.