Response Time Limits
Asynchronous Acknowledgements
All asynchronous HTTP requests received over the Electrum API need to be acknowledged within 1 second. A positive acknowledgement will take the form of a 2xx HTTP status. A valid error response is considered a negative acknowledgement.
If no acknowledgement is received within the time limit, then the request may be retried. It is therefore important to make sure that the processing of requests is idempotent. That is, if you receive a request that is identical to a previously processed message, then it should be treated as a duplicate and not affect the outcome of the request in any way.
Scheme Mandated Processing Times
Certain processing time limits must be adhered to according to the respective payment schemes' service-level agreements.
| Service | Description | Limit That Corporate Client Must Apply |
|---|---|---|
| Inbound PayShap | A full end-to-end proxy resolution transaction must be completed within 10 seconds as per the industry rules. In order to meet the SLA, the proxy resolution processing at the corporate client's system must be completed within 8 seconds in order to allow sufficient time for Electrum and BankservAfrica processing. | 8 seconds processing during proxy resolution |
| Inbound PayShap (partner-auth only) | A full end-to-end payment (clearing) transaction must be completed within 10 seconds as per the industry rules. In order to meet the SLA, the authorisation processing at the corporate client's system must be completed within 7 seconds. | 7 seconds processing during payment authorisation |
| Inbound PayShap (auto-auth only) | A full end-to-end payment (clearing) transaction must be completed within 10 seconds as per the industry rules. No processing within this SLA is required from the corporate client as all processing with the industry is performed by Electrum and the sponsor bank. | N/A |