Approve an outbound payment#

To enhance security and compliance, we have implemented a mandatory approval process for all outbound payments. Your outbound payment will not be sent until you explicitly confirm that you have reviewed the payment details and agree to proceed, because:

• Instant outbound payments cannot be cancelled once initiated, as we immediately start the money transfer process. The approval step allows you time to double-check the payment details before it is too late.
• As part of our compliance process, we run verification checks such as Confirmation of Payee to help prevent misdirected payments. See Bank Account Holder Verification for more details.

Approval process#

An outbound payment can only be approved after all verification checks are completed. This ensures you can review the payment details and verification results before giving the go-ahead. The outbound payment will enter the pending_approval state, and you will receive the set_to_pending_approval webhook notification.

Steps#

1. Upon receiving the set_to_pending_approval webhook, retrieve the payment details and carefully review the response, paying special attention to the verification results. See Bank Account Holder Verification for guidance on interpreting results, and Tracking Outbound Payments for how to retrieve payment details.
2. If you are ready to proceed, use the designated API endpoint to approve the payment:

POST https://api.gocardless.com/outbound_payments/{outbound_payment_id}/actions/approve HTTP/1.1

3. If you notice an error in the details or have concerns about the verification results and do not wish to proceed, you can cancel the payment. See Cancel an Outbound Payment.
4. Upon successful approval, the payment will transition to the next appropriate state.

What's next?#