Development Blog - Update

So today I've taking time out from working on the branded sites, and have started looking in in to expanding the functionality of our payment systems, in order to be prepared for future developments of HelloTurtle, and for proper implementation of any branded sites we were to work on.

Given that we are still waiting for PayPoint to get back to us with our account details, and that PayPoint supports payments via PayPal, I have been looking into the Adaptive Payments API that PayPal have created to see what other functions and options it can offer us.
The API provides a number of potentially very useful functions, including the ability to have the payment split between multiple recipients, the ability to define who is responsible for the PayPal fees, and also the ability to embed the payment flow within a lightbox or mini-browser window, so that the customer feels like they have never left your site.

Unfortunately, the documentation is a bit vague on one element of the API that we were planning to make use of for some future HelloTurtle plans, but hopefully PayPal support will get back to us soon and clear up whether it will be possible.
It also seems that we would not able to use the Adaptive Payment API through PayPoint, as PayPoint only supports the Express Checkout API.

If it does turn out that we can accept chained payments from guests (i.e. people without PayPal accounts) without the secondary recipients needing PayPal business accounts, then it means we can offer a number of interesting services to our clients, such as the one jade mentioned earlier today (A parent sending birthday money to their child who is on a gap year via their child's paypal account) without having to ensure that all our customers have PayPal accounts, as some people will not want to go through the hassle of creating an account, and would much rather just pay by credit card.