How can I use Stripe Connect, let's say to create a "Direct Charge", while sending an Invoice on the Telegram Payment API?
The Telegram API seems to only allow for a "provider_token", I see no further details for the Stripe API, like the required "stripe_account" property for direct charges.
I guess Telegram itself uses Stripe Connect to charge on the users behalf... But that doesn't seem to have stopped this guy from doing something very similar: https://www.reddit.com/r/TelegramBots/comments/6f6b4z/telepay_a_bot_that_enables_instant_and_secure/
He uses express accounts, but the fundamental problem of not being able to speak to stripe directly seems to be the same.
Thanks :)
You're correct about the Telegram API: there is no way to create a direct charge to a connected Stripe account when receiving payments through Telegram. But there are workarounds. I'm the author of the bot you linked; here's how I managed to move funds from my account to a connected Stripe account via Telegram.
Firstly, you need to accept the payment as usual (e.g. follow the normal sendInvoice flow). For my purposes, I made the payload parameter the ID of the user that is being sent the money (it's later matched with the Stripe account ID in the database, but you can do this however you want). The rest is out of scope of the question, so I won't describe this process in detail; Telegram has a very nice guide on it.
Once you receive the successful_payment event from the Telegram API, you can then transfer the money from your own Stripe account to the linked Stripe account using the Stripe Connect transfers endpoint, but be careful: it doesn't give you the amount that was given to your own Stripe balance (taking fees into account), so you will need to calculate that yourself. Depending on your account, it would look something like this for JavaScript: payment.total_amount - Math.round(payment.total_amount * 0.029 + 30).
After you've transfered the money to their account, you can perform a payout as usual with the payouts Stripe Connect endpoint.
But note that this is just one example; you can use all of the Stripe Connect APIs with this. In fact, you probably have even more flexibility with this, since the funds hit your Stripe account before they reach the connected account's, so you can do whatever you want with them :)
So, TL;DR: Once you've received the successful_payment from Telegram, transfer the money to the connected Stripe account, then perform a payout on it.