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Authentication

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Primarily, we use two types of authentication which we call Oauth 2.0 and InterswitchAuth.

  1. OAuth 2.0: Here, you will call our system to get an access token which must be attached to the header of your request. This will authenticate that you are permitted to use the service.
  2. Interswitch Auth: This is for our existing legacy application users where you need to generate certain parameters such as nonce, signature, timestamp, and signature method. All these parameters are to be attached to the header of every request.

Generally, you are provided with Public and secret keys. Public keys are by design used for front-end when integrating using Interswitch's inline or in our mobile SDKs Only, however, public keys cannot change any part of your account besides initiating transactions with you.

The Secret keys are to be kept secret, this key can be reset at any time on your dashboard if you believe it has been compromised.

❗️

ALL API REQUESTS MUST BE MADE OVER HTTPS.

API requests without authentication will fail with Status code 401, which means unauthorized.

OAuth 2.0

An access token is generated in this process

How to generate my Access Token

To generate an access token, you need to convert your client ID and secret key into a Base64 encoded string. This process typically involves concatenating the client ID and secret key with a colon (:) and then encoding the resulting string using Base64.

Concatenate the client ID and secret key with a colon (:) separator :

Client ID: Your Client ID
Secret Key: Your Secret Key

Concatenated String: Your Client ID: Your Secret Key

📘

NOTE

Your CLIENT_ID and SECRET_KEY can be gotten from your Quickteller Business Dashboard. You can also get them on your developer console profile, or it would be shared to you by your integration partner.

Encode the concatenated string to Base64.

Here are code snippets in different programming languages to convert your client ID and secret key to Base64.

//In Java, you can use the Base64 class available in java.util package.
import java.util.Base64;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Define your client ID and secret key
        String clientId = "your client ID";
        String secretKey = "Your secret key";

        // Concatenate with a colon
        String concatenatedString = clientId + ":" + secretKey;

        // Encode to Base64
        String encodedString = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(concatenatedString.getBytes());

        // Output the Base64 encoded string
        System.out.println("Base64 Encoded String: " + encodedString);
    }
}


//In JavaScript, you can use the btoa function for Base64 encoding.

// Define your client ID and secret key
const clientId = "Your client ID";
const secretKey = "Your secret key";

// Concatenate with a colon
const concatenatedString = `${clientId}:${secretKey}`;

// Encode to Base64
const encodedString = btoa(concatenatedString);

// Output the Base64 encoded string
console.log("Base64 Encoded String:", encodedString);

//In Python, you can use the base64 module to encode your client ID and secret key.
import base64

# Define your client ID and secret key
client_id = "Your client ID"
secret_key = "Your Secret Key"

# Concatenate with a colon
concatenated_string = f"{client_id}:{secret_key}"

# Encode to Base64
encoded_bytes = base64.b64encode(concatenated_string.encode("utf-8"))
encoded_string = encoded_bytes.decode("utf-8")

# Output the Base64 encoded string
print("Base64 Encoded String:", encoded_string)


//In C#, you can use the Convert class to encode your client ID and secret key.
using System;

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        // Define your client ID and secret key
        string clientId = "Your client ID";
        string secretKey = "Your secret Key";

        // Concatenate with a colon
        string concatenatedString = $"{clientId}:{secretKey}";

        // Encode to Base64
        byte[] bytesToEncode = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(concatenatedString);
        string encodedString = Convert.ToBase64String(bytesToEncode);

        // Output the Base64 encoded string
        Console.WriteLine("Base64 Encoded String: " + encodedString);
    }
}

The encoded string generated should be like the 

Base64 Encoded String: SUtJQTYxQzA1NjAzREFBQTUssEUyRjREMzE2RkZGQTk1NzFDM0YzsjsjsMzY6OWJlUm5BTk53OXFqQTVm

Use the Base64 encoded string as required for authentication or generating an access token to make a call to the generate access token endpoint 

curl -X POST 'https://passport.k8.isw.la/passport/oauth/token?grant_type=client_credentials' \
-H "Authorization: Basic SUtJQTYxQzA1NjAzREFBQTU1REUyRjREMzE2RkZGQTk1NzFDM0YzMTgxMzY6OWJlUm5BTk53OXFqQTVm" \
-H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
-d 'grant_type=client_credentials'

Your response should appear in the format below:

{
    "access_token": "eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiJ9.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.AqYq_5BMyVN49QWEqmoc6ZN7YXAdxK3WP4cijKLlTPcEmvzeDYUhZOu2J3-eMxEr1-46OGiMbCGQ2ezyz0oAfjeURpQ42-6P6eNXdXJrhYPGoALGsoz1Gwa66s6i8Lwq81n9PEkdQN8b6B0Gm-vQqWNl7OEWM2rZ8EotjlwbQn2vbMVlQPKvIXw--38IF-fdhq0VUbP6MKm9YVWxvcyEqhU6nAZnoEtG73U1aZSSA0bfjmAs0xmUCScURg9ufGCVn47J82UEkErUBJJTJg1SQ4bZkkWKJIDrd7S0-bUA_42cWb7y7PtwJYM4FJv94Ew_0ky9kv5dpv19ecgEfHvKCQ",
    "token_type": "bearer",
    "expires_in": 86400,
    "scope": "profile",
    "merchant_code": "MX18227",
    "production_payment_code": "00164639854",
    "requestor_id": "0055614992",
    "payable_id": "2324",
    "jti": "a5352465-375c-4bdb-b0ff-025415639bec"
}

📘

The Access token expires in the time returned by the expires_in value in the response. This value is in seconds. You can reuse the same access token for your calls till it expires.

STEP 2: Make an API call to any of our endpoints.

Say you want to make a call to the Card Payment API, you can use the generated access token as shown below:

curl https://api.interswitchng.com/api/v3/purchases\
-H "Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiJ9.ey.my47J82UEkErUBJJTJg1SQ4bZkkWKJIDrd7S0-bUA_42cWb7y7PtwJYM4FJv94Ew_0ky9kv5dpv19ecgEfHvKCQ" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
    "customerId": "1407002510",
    "amount": "20000",
    "transactionRef": "12n345mmm0km655",
    "currency": "NGN",
    "authData": "abcde=="
}' 
-X POST

Interswitch Auth (Legacy Systems)

Authentication

To use the endpoints for this service, you need to send the following HTTP header parameters with every request.

S/NHeader ParameterDescription
1.TimestampRequest timestamp in unix. It must be in seconds
2.NonceA uniquely generated value for each request. It must not be repeated and the length must NOT be more than 64 characters
3.AuthorizationThe describes the realm and identity of the user requesting access to the resource.
4.SignatureThis must be represented in base 64. The signature is calculated from a combination of defined data elements separated by '&'.
5.SignatureMethodThis refers to the cryptographic hash function used to calculate the signature e.g SHA1
6.Content-TypeThis is the MIME type of the body of the request e.g application/json.

Authorization Computation

All messages must be authorized using the standard 'Basic' authorization model of the web. The HTTP header authorization should be set to the base 64 encoded value of your client ID which can be gotten from your dashboard.

'InterswitchAuth ' . base64_encode(CLIENT_ID);

Signature Computation

The signature method should be SHA1 calculated against the data elements in the table above arranged in the order shown below:

$signature = 'GET' . '&' . urlencode($endpoint) . '&' . time()
    					. '&' . $nonce . '&' . <CLIENT_ID> . '&' . <SECRET_KEY>;
$hashedSignature = base64_encode(sha1($signature, true));

NOTE: CLIENT_ID and SECRET_KEY can be gotten from your dashboard.
Remember nonce is a uniquely generated value for each request which must have been generated earlier.

Sample Authentication Headers

Below is a sample authentication header

{
  "Authorization": "InterswitchAuth SUtJQUVFMzhDMjRBMzYzRTRGQzAxREVCRkJGRTlGOERDMUY0QkNCMkJDNDg=",
  "Content-Type": "application/json",
  "Nonce": "091f90dbbf9748f0b2854a038dbdac44",
  "SignatureMethod": "SHA1",
  "Signature": "mf73jzzhaVN8U0oZ7iiKcVgEzBY=",
  "Timestamp": "1440071245" 
}

Updated 3 months ago