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Disclaimer: This article contains AI translations and should only be used as reference. Contact Cobo’s support team through [email protected] if you have any questions.
If you are a platform institution such as a payment service provider (PSP) that needs to provide services for multiple downstream merchants, you can use the merchant management function to independently manage revenue and expenses for each merchant, and achieve automated revenue sharing with merchants by setting developer fee rates. When a payer completes a Top-up deposit, the system automatically allocates funds to the corresponding merchant account and developer account based on the merchant’s configured developer fee rate. The following diagram shows the process of automatic fund allocation to corresponding accounts in Top-up mode. Order mode uses a separate, order-level charge instead — see Payment collection in order mode and Accounts and fund allocation.

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Merchant creation and configuration

Completing Payments onboarding automatically provisions a default merchant for your organization. If you serve payers directly and have no downstream merchants, you can use the default merchant directly without creating a new one.
You can create merchants using Payments App or Payments API.
  1. Log in to Cobo Portal development environment.
  2. In the left navigation bar, click Apps, then click the Payments card to launch the App.
  3. In the App’s left navigation bar, click Merchants.
  4. Click the Create Merchant button.
  5. Complete the following configuration in the pop-up window:
    • Enter the merchant name.
    • Choose whether to Enable dedicated wallet. When enabled, the system will create a dedicated wallet for the merchant, with all payment addresses used exclusively to receive payments for this merchant, achieving complete fund isolation. Please note that enabling dedicated wallets may restrict some payout or allocation operations, so it’s recommended to balance this choice based on your actual business needs.
    • Set the developer fee rate. The developer fee rate applies only to Top-up mode deposits: it determines the proportion of each Top-up deposit that is credited to you as the developer, with the remainder credited to the merchant. For example, a 100 USDT Top-up deposit at a rate of 1.5% credits 1.5 USDT to the developer balance and 98.5 USDT to the merchant balance, with the developer’s share rounded down to the token’s supported precision. You can adjust the developer fee rate at any time; changes apply only to Top-up deposits processed after the update, not retroactively.
      Order mode uses a separate, order-level developer charge (fee_amount) instead of the developer fee rate. Because deposits are handled by separate Top-up and Order transaction logic, the two never apply to the same deposit, and there is no calculation order between them. For more details, refer to Payment collection in order mode and Accounts and fund allocation.
    • Add Destinations to configure payout addresses dedicated to this merchant, including wallet addresses and bank accounts.
If your subsequent operations involve API calls, you can click the View Details button after creation to obtain and save the merchant ID. You will need to use the merchant ID to identify the merchant in subsequent API calls.

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Practical application scenarios

Each merchant represents an independent payment collection entity. Merchants can be different stores on an e-commerce platform, different business lines of an independent online store, or other business units that require independent accounting.

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E-commerce platform serving multiple merchants

An e-commerce platform creates independent merchants for each settled merchant and sets differentiated rates based on different product types:
  • Merchant A (Electronics): Set a 2% developer fee rate
  • Merchant B (Clothing): Set a 1.5% developer fee rate
  • Merchant C (Books): Set a 1% developer fee rate
The platform can view the transaction data and balance of each merchant in real time to achieve differentiated charging and refined management.

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Multiple business lines management for independent online stores

An independent online store operates multiple business lines and creates independent merchants for each business line to achieve fund isolation and independent accounting:
  • Main site sales: Serves the B2C business line and processes payments from individual consumers on the main site
  • Wholesale business: Facilitates B2B customer management and wholesale data analysis
  • Overseas business: Meets cross-border compliance requirements and exchange rate management
This architecture achieves fund isolation, independent accounting, and refined operations for different business lines.