Frictionless SPEI

What Is Frictionless SPEI

Frictionless SPEI is how we handle the reality that users don't always follow deposit instructions. They send the wrong amount, they skip the checkout entirely, they fat-finger a number — it happens constantly. Instead of routing every mismatch to a human queue, the system now resolves the most common cases automatically and credits the user in real time.

The money still lands in the right bank account. Nothing changes on the settlement side. The difference is that we no longer need a person to figure out who sent the funds and manually push a balance update. The system does it.

In practice, this eliminates the bulk of manual deposit reviews, “wrong amount” escalations, “deposit without checkout” tickets, and the reconciliation overhead that comes with all of it.

The feature builds on top of standard SPEI integration. If you haven't set up regular SPEI payments yet, do that first — Frictionless SPEI is an extension of the base SPEI flow, not a replacement.

Why We Built This

SPEI deposits are the backbone of how users fund their accounts. But the previous system was brittle — it only auto-credited a deposit if everything matched perfectly: the right CLABE, the exact amount down to the centavo, and an active checkout session. Miss any one of those, and the deposit got kicked to manual review.

The information was there — we had the CLABE, the sender's history, the banking metadata. We just weren't using it to auto-resolve.

Frictionless SPEI closes that gap.

How Deposits Worked Before

Under the previous model, a SPEI deposit followed a strict matching pipeline. All three conditions had to pass:

If any condition failed, the deposit went into a manual review queue. The user's balance stayed flat until someone resolved it. Every unresolved deposit was a ticket that needed human judgment, and the volume scaled linearly with user growth.

How Identification Works: CLABE + Identifiers

Every deposit relies on two distinct layers of identification working together.

How It Works Now: The Two Use Cases

Use Case 1: Mismatched Amount

A user opens a checkout for $100 MXN but sends $600 MXN. The system handles it automatically.

Webhook payload:

{
  "data": {
    "amount": 600.0,
    "metadata": {
      "external_id": "ORDER-12345",
      "mismatched_deposit": "True",
      "original_expected_amount": "100"
    }
  }
}

Ops dashboard view:

Use Case 2: Direct Transfer Without Checkout

A returning user sends money straight to their CLABE without opening a checkout. The system recognizes them from history.

Webhook payload:

{
  "data": {
    "amount": 700.0,
    "metadata": {
      "external_id": "CUSTOMER-12345",
      "concept": "Frictionless deposit - auto-created"
    }
  }
}

Integration: Choosing an Identifier Strategy

{
  "amount": 500,
  "currency": "MXN",
  "payment_method": "spei",
  "metadata": {
    "external_id": "PLAYER-12345"
  }
}

{
  "amount": 500,
  "currency": "MXN",
  "payment_method": "spei",
  "metadata": {
    "external_id": "ORDER-12345",
    "additional_external_id": "PLAYER-98765"
  }
}

Strategy comparison:

Custom Field Aliases

Merchants can configure domain-specific field names instead of the generic external_id. For example, a gaming platform might use order_id and player_id.

What Still Goes to Manual Review

Day-to-Day Impact on Operations

For Finance Teams

Implications for Merchants

For merchants running deposits through Tonder, Frictionless SPEI means end users get a noticeably better experience. Deposits that previously would have been stuck in a queue now land instantly. This matters most for gaming wallets, prepaid balances, and event top-ups — where even a 10-minute delay feels broken.

Merchants also gain control over how they handle each use case. With webhook flags (mismatched_deposit, concept), they can build different notification flows — alerting users about amount mismatches or confirming successful top-ups for direct transfers.

Technical Notes

Resolution Pipeline

Control and Configuration

Frictionless SPEI can be disabled at any time — globally or per-merchant. When disabled, all deposits revert to strict-match behavior with a single toggle.

Integration Best Practices

Common Questions

Integration Checklist