International payments
12 min
in this tutorial, you'll learn how to ✅ get an estimate of the exchange rate for a cross border payment ✅ get a list of fields required to get a valid executable quote for the payment ✅ request an executable quote ✅ send a payment ✅ deal with returned and rejected payments ✅ send an international payment using cos explorer if you are new to international payments we recommend you read international payments docid 3evrgfmqc 15mblv j3cp before starting this tutorial this tutorial assumes you have a knowledge of apis and how they work for more information on sending api calls, refer to structure the tutorial uses these api endpoints api description get exchange rate estimate returns the estimated cost of sending an international payment, including the exchange rate get list of required fields for quote request returns a list of country specific fields you need to submit when requesting a quote request a payment quote requests an executable payment quote for sending either usd or foreign currency before actually sending funds originate a payment executes a payment quote to send funds internationally before you begin make sure you have quickstart account number of the sending cross river account sending account configured by cross river to send international payments fees configured by cross river according to your signed agreement register relevant webhook events to receive the webhook events for this tutorial you need to accounts, cards and payment events each specific webhook event type once you are registered, the event objects are sent to the registered urls a basic event object contains a list of resource identifiers used to download details on each event an extended event object contains more details for this tutorial register for this webhook event true false 284false unhandled content type false unhandled content type false unhandled content type false unhandled content type send an international payment from a cross river account to send a payment cross border, you must make several api calls get an estimate of the fees and exchange rate this call gives a general idea of how much the money transfer will cost the customer we recommend you call this endpoint but it's not required determine the required fields for getting a quote for a payment to a specific country depending on the country, the required information can differ it's important to know which values you must supply for the quote call to complete without errors request a quote for the exchange this call returns a quoteid that is required to make the actual payment the quote is usually good for 30 seconds originate the payment include the quoteid to use the api to send the payment money amounts in api calls and responses are written without a decimal point between the dollars and the cents to get an exchange rate estimate call the get exchange rate estimate endpoint for this call, you must supply your cross river accountnumber , the desired currency of the received payment, and either amount in usd you plan to send ( fromamount ) or the amount in the foreign currency you want sent ( toamount ) in this example, the account number is 158560897007 , the currency is great british pounds ( gbp ), and the from amount is 10 00 usd ( 1000 ) important you must have a value for either a fromamount or a toamount , but not both sample request curl location 'https //sandbox crbcos com/international/v1/estimates?accountnumber=158560897007\¤cy=gbp\&fromamount=1000' \\ \ data '' a successful api call returns a json response with the details of the estimate this estimate is non binding and only gives you an approximate idea of what the exchange rate will be in this example, we provided the fromamount the toamount returned is 7 89 gbp at an exchange rate of 0 7889 usd to the gbp in addition, you can see that a regular transaction costs 1 29 usd while a priority transaction (swift) costs 14 00 usd sample response { "accountnumber" "158560897007", "currency" "gbp", "fromamount" 1000, "toamount" 789, "exchangerate" "0 7889", "regulartransactionfeeamount" 129, "prioritytransactionfeeamount" 1400 } to get a list of required fields for a quote call get /international/v1/meta/quote requirements for this call, you must supply values for all possible attributes none are optional in this example, we provide the following values currency gbp (great britain pounds) beneficiarycountry us (united states) bankcountrycode gb (great britain) entitytype individual (what legal entity is receiving the payment) priority if no value is supplied, the default is false meaning not via swift sample request curl location 'https //sandbox crbcos com/international/v1/meta/quote requirements?filter currency=gbp\&filter beneficiarycountrycode=us\&filter bankcountrycode=gb\&filter entitytype=individual' \\ \ data '' a successful api call returns a json response with a list of required fields/attributes you must provide values for when you call post /international/v1/quotes the attributes in the response are required for the quote that will have the parameters as defined in this request the response values describe the required responses for example, for lastname the value is ^(\[^0 9]{2,255})$ , indicating that regular expression characters are permitted, up to 255 characters maximum the bankcountrycode is gb , as provided in the request attributes regarding entities and fis refer to the beneficiary only sample response \[ { "firstname" "^(\[^0 9]{2,255})$", "lastname" "^(\[^0 9]{2,255})$", "currency" "gbp", "address" "^ {1,255}", "city" "^ {1,255}", "postalcode" "^ {1,12}$", "countrycode" "us", "routingcodetype1" "sortcode", "routingcodevalue1" "^\\\d{6}$", "bankname" "^ {1,255}", "bankcountrycode" "gb", "receiveraccountnumber" "^\\\d{8}$", "entitytype" "individual", "paymentnetwork" "regular", "priority" false } ] to request an international payment quote call post /international/v1/quotes for this call, you must supply values for the fields returned in the the get /international/v1/meta/quote requirements call sample request curl location 'https //sandbox crbcos com/international/v1/quotes' \\ \ data '{ "currency" "gbp", "accountnumber" "158560897007", "fromamount" "500", "toamount" "", "beneficiary" { "firstname" "jon", "lastname" "smith", "fullname" "jonsmith", "birthdate" "2001 06 18t13 05 09 015z", "address" "1 street", "city" "winfield", "stateprovince" "", "postalcode" "gb12345", "countrycode" "gb", "entitytype" "individual" }, "beneficiaryfi" { "bankname" "bank uk", "bankcountrycode" "gb", "bankaddress" "1 avenue", "bankaccounttype" "checking", "routingcodetype1" "sortcode", "routingcodevalue1" "123456789", "routingcodetype2" "aba", "routingcodevalue2" "123456789", "bicswift" "tgclgb99", "iban" "gb33bukb20201555555555" }, "priority" true, "purpose" "srv" }' a successful api call returns a json response with a quote id in the id field and information about the exchange rate you need the quote id to make the payment the quote is valid for 30 seconds in this example, the quote id is f710a42a e03a 47b8 a415 b3050061085e { "id" "f710a42a e03a 47b8 a415 b3050061085e", "accountnumber" "158560897007", "currency" "gbp", "beneficiary" { "firstname" "jon", "lastname" "smith", "birthdate" "2001 06 18t00 00 00 04 00", "address" "1 street", "city" "winfield", "postalcode" "gb12345", "countrycode" "gb", "entitytype" "individual" }, "beneficiaryfi" { "bankname" "bank uk", "bankcountrycode" "gb", "bankaddress" "1 avenue", "bankaccounttype" "checking", "routingcodetype1" "sortcode", "routingcodevalue1" "123456789", "routingcodetype2" "aba", "routingcodevalue2" "123456789", "bicswift" "tgclgb99", "iban" "gb33bukb20201555555555" }, "fromamount" 500, "toamount" 394, "transactionfee" 100, "conversionrate" 0 7889, "estimateddeliverydate" "2025 06 23t00 00 00 04 00", "expiresat" "2025 06 23t01 54 18 8357042 04 00", "status" "created", "priority" true, "paymentnetwork" "priority", "purpose" "srv" } to send an international payment call post /international/v1/payments for this call, you must supply the quote id from the id field returned in the the post /international/v1/quotes call in this example, the quote id is f710a42a e03a 47b8 a415 b3050061085e , which we received in the response you can add a client identifier if you like sample request curl location 'https //sandbox crbcos com/international/v1/payments' \\ \ data '{ "quoteid" "f710a42a e03a 47b8 a415 b3050061085e" }' a successful api call returns a json response with the payment id in the id field and information about the payment in this example, the payment id is f710a42a e03a 47b8 a415 b3050061085e sample response { "id" "f710a42a e03a 47b8 a415 b3050061085e", "partnerid" "19222b81 0e1e 452d a842 b2f1011c16f3", "productid" "57146944 b145 4326 884d b2f700ecf688", "quoteid" "1a7c9fa9 10fb 4db8 a620 b3050061ca0e", "fromcurrency" "usd", "tocurrency" "gbp", "fromamount" 500, "toamount" 394, "accountnumber" "158560897007", "estimateddeliverydate" "2025 06 23t00 00 00 04 00", "originator" { "firstname" "brandon", "lastname" "sanderson", "fullname" "brandon sanderson", "address" "400 kelby st", "city" "fort lee", "stateprovince" "nj", "postalcode" "07024", "countrycode" "us", "entitytype" "individual" }, "beneficiary" { "firstname" "jon", "lastname" "smith", "fullname" "jon smith", "birthdate" "2001 06 18t00 00 00 04 00", "address" "1 street", "city" "winfield", "postalcode" "gb12345", "countrycode" "gb", "entitytype" "individual" }, "beneficiaryfi" { "bankname" "bank uk", "bankcountrycode" "gb", "bankaddress" "1 avenue", "bankaccounttype" "checking", "routingcodetype1" "sortcode", "routingcodevalue1" "123456789", "routingcodetype2" "aba", "routingcodevalue2" "123456789", "bicswift" "tgclgb99", "iban" "gb33bukb20201555555555" }, "status" "created", "purpose" "srv", "paymenttype" "transfer", "direction" "outbound", "priority" true, "feeamount" 100, "feecurrency" "usd", "source" "api", "createdat" "2025 06 23t01 56 22 770927 04 00", "lastmodifiedat" "2025 06 23t01 56 22 8905947 04 00", "limitseligibleon" "2025 06 23t01 56 22 770927 04 00" } when the payment completes an international payment sent webhook event fires the payment id ( f710a42a e03a 47b8 a415 b3050061085e ) provided in the response body of the payment origination request ( id ) appears in the details object of the international payment sent event sample international payment sent event { "id" "965a22ca 7005 4c88 b7c0 b0f1018381da", "eventname" "international payment sent", "status" "pending", "partnerid" "19222b81 0e1e 452d a842 b2f1011c16f3", "createdat" "2024 01 08t18 30 52 247 05 00", "resources" \[ "international/v1/payments/f710a42a e03a 47b8 a415 b3050061085e" ], "details" \[ { "paymentid" "f710a42a e03a 47b8 a415 b3050061085e", "productid" "57146944 b145 4326 884d b2f700ecf688", "quoteid" "f710a42a e03a 47b8 a415 b3050061085e", "fromcurrency" "usd", "tocurrency" "gbp", "fromamount" 500, "toamount" 394, "feeamount" "100", "accountnumber" "158560897007", "status" "completed", "reason" null, "clientidentifier" null, "priority" "true", "payerentitytype" "individual", "companyname" null, "firstname" "sara", "lastname" "kim", "address" "250 kuhn highway", "city" "grover", "stateprovince" "rr", "postalcode" "28073", "country" "gb", "birthdate" null } ] } cos explorer get an estimate before committing to sending an international payment, you can get an estimated fx rate for your desired currency this optional step includes cross river' s spread fee charge and does not require beneficiary information in the international tab click get estimate the get estimate page displays enter your account number ( acct # ) in the search bar in the currency box enter either the dollar amount you want to send or the foreign currency amount you want the beneficiary receive do not enter both values click get estimate a currency estimate displays originate an international payment click originate payment and complete all required fields including beneficiary details and priority , where yes indicates swift or local rail and no indicates local rail the required information, such as, account number, iban, bic/swift, sort code, may vary depending on the destination country of the international payment click get quote after clicking get quote , you will see the fx rate, spread fees, and transaction fees for the payment the fx quote is valid for 1 minute before it updates if you click send payment after the quote expires you will need to go back to step 2 and regenerate a quote click send payment to originate the payment to view your payment click payments