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Collect payments with Selcom

SELCOM collects by wallet push. The payer enters their number on the portal, a PIN prompt appears on their phone, and they approve it there. They never leave the portal page. Offered in the country catalog for Tanzania (TZ). Centipid Billing uses three calls from Selcom’s Checkout API:
  1. create-order-minimal opens an order for the amount.
  2. wallet-payment sends the PIN prompt for that order to the payer’s number.
  3. order-status reports whether the order was paid.
Nothing is credited until order-status reports the order COMPLETED.

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Before you start

Ask Selcom’s business team for Checkout API access on an account owned by the ISP. They issue three values: a Vendor ID (the till, often starting with TILL), an API key, and an API secret. Selcom’s public docs list no test environment. If you want to test before going live, ask Selcom for test keys and the test host that goes with them.

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Configure the gateway

1

Open Settings → Payments → Selcom

Select Selcom from the payment marketplace.
2

Enter the Vendor ID, API key, and API secret

All three are required. The key and secret are stored as secrets.
3

Enter the API host, only if Selcom gave you one

Leave API host blank for Selcom’s live gateway (https://apigw.selcommobile.com). Enter the test host here while testing, then clear it when you switch to live keys.
4

Run a controlled test payment

Pay a small amount from the captive portal, approve the prompt on the phone, and confirm the payment reaches the ledger.

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Credentials

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Callback URL

There is nothing to paste into Selcom. Every order carries its own webhook (/api/selcom/callback) on the ISP’s domain. Selcom calls the webhook only when a payment succeeds. So Centipid also asks Selcom for the order’s status every 5 seconds for about 3 minutes after the prompt is sent. That check is what connects the payer, and what tells the portal when a payer declined the prompt. A webhook whose signature does not match the API secret is rejected.

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Troubleshooting

  • “Unable to send the Selcom payment prompt”: the Vendor ID, API key, or API secret is wrong, or the account has no Checkout API access. Selcom’s exact response is in the application log.
  • No prompt arrives: check the number is a Tanzanian mobile-money number. Selcom only accepts it as 255…, and Centipid converts 07… numbers automatically.
  • The payer paid but did not connect: search the payment by the transaction ID on their receipt. Payments are stored under Selcom’s transaction ID.