Introduction

viafintech API Stores v3 provides two endpoints to retrieve stores which offer the Barzahlen/viacash service including their opening hours and coordinates.

It is possible to find stores:

located close to a given point.
located within a rectangular bounding box of geocoordinates.

The two endpoints offer different use cases, for example:

The /nearby endpoint could be used to find the closest stores to a specific location.
The /within_bounds endpoint can be used to show the stores on a map without a specific single reference point.

The goal of this API is to allow building user interfaces which make it convenient for customers to find stores offering Barzahlen/viacash.

The API is a JSON-based REST API.

Functionality

/stores/nearby Find the nearest 10 stores from a given point (lat,lng).
/stores/within_bounds Find stores that lie within the created bounding box from two given points (top left, bottom right).

Accessing the API

The API is accessible via HTTPS and uses JSON as the format for requests and responses. As a REST-API, it uses the appropriate HTTP methods to indicate the type of request and response codes for indicating the outcome of a request. For errors, it returns additional, more specific error classes, codes, and messages.

The base API endpoint is: https://stores.viafintech.com/v3

When accessing the API, always verify the HTTPS server certificate. Certificate verification is necessary to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks. Read your HTTP client's documentation carefully and, among other required checks, make sure to verify the certificate chain as well as the server name(s) in the certificate.

Authentication

For authentication, the API requires each request to include an Authorization header with Basic Auth.

API Requests

Authorization header format for API requests

Authorization: Basic APIToken

For requests, the API expects a standard HTTP Authorization header.

The Authorization header will need to include the Basic flag and an APIToken.

The APIToken is constructed by two required parts, the Division ID and the API Key for this API.

These parts need to concatenated with a colon : in the following fashion DivisionID:APIKey and then base64 encoded.

The Authorization credentials (Division ID and Stores API Key) are accessible via the Control Center under Settings / Divisions.

Please, use the Stores API Key and be aware that the API Key is only valid for viafintech API v2!

When the Authorization header is missing or invalid, the API returns HTTP status 401 and an error.

Example Request with Authorization header

GET /v3/stores/nearby?lat=52.48675300749431&lng=13.35877465576175 HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Basic MTIzNDU6NmQ4ZjMxYzBiYWJiNTA2MGViYTBjZTQxNTZmYmIyNWVkODUzOGU5MQ==

Rate Limiting

Request Limit

The API is rate limited per API Key to ensure that server resources are not overloaded.

Example API response headers after a single request

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 363
Content-Type: application/json;charset=utf-8
Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2017 10:54:54 GMT
Ratelimit-Limit: 31
Ratelimit-Remaining: 30
Ratelimit-Reset-After: 1

If the limit is reached, additional requests are not processed and a rate_limit_exceeded error is returned with HTTP status code 429. Over time, requests will be allowed again (as indicated by the Retry-After header) and the request can be repeated.

The API uses a 'leaky bucket' algorithm for rate limiting. It allows a sustained rate of 1 request per second, i.e. the bucket 'leaks' one request per second. If the bucket has a size of 31, a divison can execute a burst of 31 requests at once (within one second) before the limit is reached, i.e. the bucket is full. The next request is available after a second, when one request has 'leaked' from the bucket. Each second, another request 'leaks' from the bucket until after 31 seconds without requests, the bucket is empty again. The specific limits may differ depending on the division.

If you expect to reach these limits, you should implement client-side rate limit to prevent getting rate_limit_exceeded errors. When getting such an error, do not immediately retry a request, but wait at least the time indicated by the Retry-After header.

The following rate limiting-related headers are returned:

Ratelimit-Limit: Total number of requests generally allowed at once
Ratelimit-Remaining: Number of requests remaining
Ratelimit-Reset-After: Duration in seconds until the limit will be reset to the maximum if no additional requests are executed.
Retry-After: Returned only with rate_limit_exceeded errors and contains the duration in seconds until the next request is allowed.

Errors

Example Error Response

{
  "error_class": "invalid_parameters",
  "error_code": "invalid_point_parameters",
  "message": "The following parameters have an invalid format: lat, lng"
}

viafintech API Stores v3 returns different HTTP error codes in the 4xx and 5xx ranges. When an error status is returned, the body contains JSON with more information about the error (except for some 5xx errors, which might contain non-JSON data).

Error responses contain an error class as well as an error code. Errors in the same class contain similar types of errors. Your API implementation should be prepared to handle new error codes in any of the existing classes. New error classes will not be added without a new API version. Never write code parsing error messages or use them for anything other than showing them to people. Error messages will change without announcement.

The following describes all error classes as well as all currently used error codes. You should implement automated retries for certain errors, but not for others.

Error Classes

auth: Authentication or authorization problem. Do not automatically retry the same request.
rate_limit: Too many requests were sent per duration, retry the same request later (see Rate Limiting).
invalid_format: The request body has an invalid format. Do not automatically retry the same request.
invalid_parameters: One of the given parameters does not have the necessary format or is invalid for some other reason. Do not automatically retry the same request.
missing_parameters: One or more required parameters are not present in the request. Do not automatically retry the same request.
server_error: An internal error occurred on our systems. Automatically retry the same request with a limited number of attempts. If the error persists for several hours, please contact us.

General Errors

The message returned with an error code can contain additional information.

Status	Class	Code and hints
401	`auth`	`invalid_auth`
404	`invalid_format`	`invalid_request_url`
429	`rate_limit`	`rate_limit_exceeded`
500	`server_error`	`internal_server_error` - These should happen rarely, we fix them as soon as possible.

Other HTTP status codes in the 5xx range (e.g. 503) are possible and should be treated the same as a 500 error.

You can find endpoint-specific error codes with the documentation for each endpoint.

API Stability

We will make backwards-compatible changes to API Stores V3 without releasing a new version. This means we will not break existing code accessing the API, under the assumption that the existing code allows for the following changes to the API:

Adding new resources.
Adding new optional request body or query parameters.
Adding new parameters to response bodies.
Changing the length or format of id or token parameters. Always store parameters we return as string as such, even if they only contain numbers.
Adding new error codes. We will not add new error classes, but your code must be able to handle an unknown error code for any error class.
Changing error messages. Never write code parsing them or using them for anything else than showing them to people, see Errors.

If we need to make changes which likely break systems using the API in the future, we will release a new version of the API. Examples for such backwards-incompatible changes are:

Removing resources.
Removing properties from response bodies.
Changing required query parameters.
Changing name and type of query parameters.

Changelog

Changes from API v2

New Version v3.
Required Authorization header on each API request.
Endpoint path change - /stores is now /stores/within_bounds.
Endpoint request parameters added: /stores/within_bounds now requires four query parameters that form a bounding box instead of a single map bounds string.
The stores will now be filtered automatically by the allowed offline partners for the Division.
Rate Limiting added to all endpoints.
Error responses now include a class, code and a message.

/stores/nearby

GET /stores/nearby

Nearby returns a list of the 10 nearest stores to the given point

Example Response Body for HTTP status 200

[
  {
    "id":8321,
    "lat":"49.30303",
    "lng":"6.80063",
    "title":"REWE",
    "street_and_no":"Zur Langenlaenge 2",
    "zipcode":"66773",
    "city":"Schwalbach",
    "countrycode":"DE",
    "distance":"2.49",
    "phone":null,
    "parking":null,
    "opening_hours_per_day":[
      { "day": "mon", "open": [{ "begin": "08:00", "end": "20:00" }] },
      { "day": "tue", "open": [{ "begin": "08:00", "end": "20:00" }] },
      { "day": "wed", "open": [{ "begin": "08:00", "end": "20:00" }] },
      { "day": "thu", "open": [{ "begin": "08:00", "end": "20:00" }] },
      { "day": "fri", "open": [{ "begin": "08:00", "end": "20:00" }] },
      { "day": "sat", "open": [{ "begin": "08:00", "end": "20:00" }] }
    ],
    "logo_url":"https://cdn.viafintech.com/images/filialfinder/logo_rewe.png",
    "logo_thumbnail_url":"https://cdn.viafintech.com/images/filialfinder/tn_rewe.png",
    "offline_partner_id":37684,
    "minutes_until_close":425,
    "transfer_directions": ["in", "out"]
  },
  {
    "id":861,
    "lat":"49.3024702",
    "lng":"6.8004216",
    "title":"dm-drogerie markt",
    "street_and_no":"Zur Langelänge 12",
    "zipcode":"66773",
    "city":"Schwalbach",
    "countrycode":"DE",
    "distance":"2.53",
    "phone":"068345790092",
    "parking":true,
    "opening_hours_per_day":[
      { "day": "mon", "open": [{ "begin": "08:00", "end": "20:00" }] },
      { "day": "tue", "open": [{ "begin": "08:00", "end": "20:00" }] },
      { "day": "wed", "open": [{ "begin": "08:00", "end": "20:00" }] },
      { "day": "thu", "open": [{ "begin": "08:00", "end": "20:00" }] },
      { "day": "fri", "open": [{ "begin": "08:00", "end": "20:00" }] },
      { "day": "sat", "open": [{ "begin": "08:00", "end": "20:00" }] }
    ],
    "logo_url":"https://cdn.viafintech.com/images/filialfinder/logo_dm-drogerie-markt.png",
    "logo_thumbnail_url":"https://cdn.viafintech.com/images/filialfinder/tn_dm-drogerie-markt.png",
    "offline_partner_id":13045,
    "minutes_until_close":425,
    "transfer_directions": ["in"]
  }
]

Response Attributes

Name	Type	Description	Example
city	string	The city in which the store is located.	`"Berlin"`
countrycode	string	The country in which the store is located as an ISO 3166-1 alpha 2 language code.	`"Berlin"`
distance	string	The distance of the store to the given coordinates in kilometers as a decimal number	`"0.53"`
id	integer	A unique identifier of the store	`8321`
lat	string	The store's latitude represented as a string (between -90.0 and 90.0). This field is not returned by default. See Optional Features for more information. Pattern: `^-?[0-9]+\.[0-9]+$`	`"52.4867530074"`
lng	string	The store's longitude represented as a string (between -180.0 and 180.0). This field is not returned by default. See Optional Features for more information. Pattern: `^-?[0-9]+\.[0-9]+$`	`"13.3587746557"`
logo_thumbnail_url	string	A thumbnail logo for the store to display in a UI.	`"https://cdn.viafintech.com/images/filialfinder/logo_viacash.png"`
logo_url	string	A logo for the store to display in a UI.	`"https://cdn.viafintech.com/images/filialfinder/logo_viacash.png"`
minutes_until_close	integer	Number of minutes until the store closes. When the value `0` is returned the store is closed at the moment. When the value `-1` is returned no opening hour information are available.	`10`
offline_partner_id	integer	A unique identifier of the partner operating the store.	`12345`
opening_hours_per_day/day	string	The letter abbreviation for the day of the week. One of: `"sun"` or `"mon"` or `"tue"` or `"wed"` or `"thu"` or `"fri"` or `"sat"`	`"mon"`
opening_hours_per_day/open/begin	string	The time at which the open block begins. The time is provided in 24h notation. Pattern: `^\d{2}:\d{2}$`	`"08:00"`
opening_hours_per_day/open/end	string	The time at which the open block ends. The time is provided in 24h notation. Pattern: `^\d{2}:\d{2}$`	`"20:00"`
parking	nullable boolean	The parking flag defines whether car parking spots are available. A null value represents that no data is available.	`"+49123456789"`
phone	nullable string	The phone number of the specific store. A null value represents that no data is available.	`"+49123456789"`
street_and_no	string	The street and house number in which the store is located.	`"Budapester Str. 50"`
title	string	The title describing the store, e.g. the brand name of the store.	`"viacash store"`
transfer_directions	array	Transfer directions which are supported by the store	`"['in','out']"`
zipcode	string	The zipcode in which the store is located.	`"10787"`

Download JSON schema

Headers

Header	Description
Authorization	A per-request Basic Auth Authorization header, see Authentication.

Query Parameters

Parameter	Description	Mandatory	Format	Example
lat	String representation of the point's latitude (between -90.0 and 90.0)	Yes	String	52.48675300749431
lng	String representation of the point's longitude (between -180.0 and 180.0)	Yes	String	13.35877465576175
transfer_directions	Defines which transfer_directions to look for when fetching stores	No	String, one of (in,out)	in,out

Errors

General API Errors can also be returned by this resource. See also Errors.

Status	Class	Code and hints
400	`invalid_parameters`	`invalid_point_parameters`
400	`missing_parameters`	`missing_point_parameters`

/stores/within_bounds

GET /stores/within_bounds

Within Bounds returns a list of stores contained within the formed bounding box of 2 points (top_left, bottom_right)

Example Response Body for HTTP status 200

[
  {
    "id":9818,
    "lat":"52.520001",
    "lng":"13.3908251",
    "title":"ADAMS",
    "street_and_no":"Georgenstr. 12",
    "zipcode":"10117",
    "city":"Berlin",
    "countrycode":"DE",
    "opening_hours_per_day":[
      { "day": "mon", "open": [{ "begin": "05:00", "end": "22:00" }] },
      { "day": "tue", "open": [{ "begin": "05:00", "end": "22:00" }] },
      { "day": "wed", "open": [{ "begin": "05:00", "end": "22:00" }] },
      { "day": "thu", "open": [{ "begin": "05:00", "end": "22:00" }] },
      { "day": "fri", "open": [{ "begin": "05:00", "end": "23:59" }] },
      { "day": "sat", "open": [{ "begin": "07:00", "end": "23:59" }] },
      { "day": "sun", "open": [{ "begin": "07:00", "end": "22:00" }] }
    ],
    "phone":"03020058992",
    "parking":null,
    "logo_url":"https://cdn.viafintech.com/images/filialfinder/logo_adams.png",
    "logo_thumbnail_url":"https://cdn.viafintech.com/images/filialfinder/tn_adams.png",
    "offline_partner_id":34154,
    "minutes_until_close":541,
    "transfer_directions": ["in", "out"]
  },
  {
    "id":10332,
    "lat":"52.51191",
    "lng":"13.4818",
    "title":"REWE",
    "street_and_no":"Frankfurter Allee 144",
    "zipcode":"10365",
    "city":"Berlin",
    "countrycode":"DE",
    "opening_hours_per_day":[
      { "day": "mon", "open": [{ "begin": "07:00", "end": "23:59" }] },
      { "day": "tue", "open": [{ "begin": "07:00", "end": "23:59" }] },
      { "day": "wed", "open": [{ "begin": "07:00", "end": "23:59" }] },
      { "day": "thu", "open": [{ "begin": "07:00", "end": "23:59" }] },
      { "day": "fri", "open": [{ "begin": "07:00", "end": "23:59" }] },
      { "day": "sat", "open": [{ "begin": "07:00", "end": "23:30" }] }
    ],
    "phone":null,
    "parking":null,
    "logo_url":"https://cdn.viafintech.com/images/filialfinder/logo_rewe.png",
    "logo_thumbnail_url":"https://cdn.viafintech.com/images/filialfinder/tn_rewe.png",
    "offline_partner_id":37684,
    "minutes_until_close":660,
    "transfer_directions": ["in"]
  }
]

Response Attributes

Name	Type	Description	Example
city	string	The city in which the store is located.	`"Berlin"`
countrycode	string	The country in which the store is located as an ISO 3166-1 alpha 2 language code.	`"Berlin"`
id	integer	A unique identifier of the store	`8321`
lat	string	The store's latitude represented as a string (between -90.0 and 90.0). This field is not returned by default. See Optional Features for more information. Pattern: `^-?[0-9]+\.[0-9]+$`	`"52.4867530074"`
lng	string	The store's longitude represented as a string (between -180.0 and 180.0). This field is not returned by default. See Optional Features for more information. Pattern: `^-?[0-9]+\.[0-9]+$`	`"13.3587746557"`
logo_thumbnail_url	string	A thumbnail logo for the store to display in a UI.	`"https://cdn.viafintech.com/images/filialfinder/logo_viacash.png"`
logo_url	string	A logo for the store to display in a UI.	`"https://cdn.viafintech.com/images/filialfinder/logo_viacash.png"`
minutes_until_close	integer	Number of minutes until the store closes. When the value `0` is returned the store is closed at the moment. When the value `-1` is returned no opening hour information are available.	`10`
offline_partner_id	integer	A unique identifier of the partner operating the store.	`12345`
opening_hours_per_day/day	string	The letter abbreviation for the day of the week. One of: `"sun"` or `"mon"` or `"tue"` or `"wed"` or `"thu"` or `"fri"` or `"sat"`	`"mon"`
opening_hours_per_day/open/begin	string	The time at which the open block begins. The time is provided in 24h notation. Pattern: `^\d{2}:\d{2}$`	`"08:00"`
opening_hours_per_day/open/end	string	The time at which the open block ends. The time is provided in 24h notation. Pattern: `^\d{2}:\d{2}$`	`"20:00"`
parking	nullable boolean	The parking flag defines whether car parking spots are available. A null value represents that no data is available.	`"+49123456789"`
phone	nullable string	The phone number of the specific store. A null value represents that no data is available.	`"+49123456789"`
street_and_no	string	The street and house number in which the store is located.	`"Budapester Str. 50"`
title	string	The title describing the store, e.g. the brand name of the store.	`"viacash store"`
transfer_directions	array	Transfer directions which are supported by the store	`"['in','out']"`
zipcode	string	The zipcode in which the store is located.	`"10787"`

Download JSON schema

Headers

Header	Description
Authorization	A per-request Basic Auth Authorization header, see Authentication.

Query Parameters

Parameter	Description	Mandatory	Format	Example
top_left_lat	String representation of the top left point's latitude (between -90.0 and 90.0)	Yes	String	51.3053922724
top_left_lng	String representation of the top left point's longitude (between -180.0 and 180.0)	Yes	String	12.4277257919
bottom_right_lat	String representation of the bottom right point's latitude (between -90.0 and 90.0)	Yes	String	51.3040373701
bottom_right_lng	String representation of the bottom right point's longitude (between -180.0 and 180.0)	Yes	String	12.43060112
transfer_directions	Defines which transfer_directions to look for when fetching stores	No	String, one of (in,out)	in,out

Errors

General API Errors can also be returned by this resource. See also Errors.

Status	Class	Code and hints
400	`invalid_parameters`	`invalid_bounds_parameters`
400	`invalid_parameters`	`bounds_exceeded` - The formed bounding box is too big (max is 100 km)
400	`missing_parameters`	`missing_bounds_parameters`