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MOTO Payments

MOTO stands for Mail Order / Telephone Order: a payment you enter on behalf of the customer, for an order received by phone, mail or a similar channel. The customer is not present at a terminal and does not complete a checkout themselves — you take their payment details and process the payment for them.

Typical cases are a call-centre order, a phone reservation, or a booking taken by email.

Which payment methods support MOTO​

MOTO is a sales channel that a payment method has to support. The methods available for MOTO are:

  • Visa and Visa V Pay
  • Mastercard and Maestro
  • TWINT
  • PostFinance Pay, PostFinance Card and PostFinance E-Finance
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Wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay cannot be used for MOTO — they require the cardholder's device and authentication, which a MOTO payment does not have. For the full channel-by-method overview, see Payment Methods.

Before you can take MOTO payments​

The Virtual Terminal function must be activated for your space before you can process payments through the portal on the customer's behalf.

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For transactions processed through Worldline terminals, activating the virtual terminal requires specific activation by the acquirer. See Refunds, where the same virtual terminal function is used to refund terminal transactions once the customer has left the store.

Cost and risk to keep in mind​

MOTO card payments carry a higher risk and higher fees than other channels, for one reason: the cardholder is not authenticated. 3-D Secure — which shifts the liability for a fraudulent chargeback to the card issuer — cannot apply to a MOTO payment, because the customer never authenticates online. The chargeback liability therefore stays with you.

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An alternative that avoids the MOTO fees: instead of entering the card details yourself, send the customer a payment link or use a charge flow that emails them a link. The customer then pays through a normal, authenticated checkout — which is cheaper and moves the fraud liability off you. This is often the better choice for call-centre and webshop scenarios.

  • Payment Methods — which methods support MOTO, and on which other channels.
  • Payment Links — the authenticated alternative to entering card details yourself.
  • Charge Flows — sending the customer a payment request instead of keying it in.
  • Refunds — the virtual terminal function, also used for refunding terminal transactions.