Card Account Updater

Card Account Updater works quietly in the background to automatically update your customers’ card details when their cards are expired, replaced, or updated - ensuring recurring or subscription payments can be processed without interruptions.

Current problem

Businesses that rely on subscription and recurring payments often encounter a significant challenge: payment declines due to outdated card details. Regardless of whether you store shopper card details with Airwallex or another provider, expired, lost, stolen, or upgraded cards can lead to failed payments and subsequent issues:

• Interrupted service for your shoppers
• Lost revenue for merchants
• Increased customer service costs for merchants
• Potential churn
• Administrative burden of manual card updates

Airwallex uses network tokenization for Visa and MasterCard payments to receive updates on saved cards. However, not all issuing banks support network tokenization. Because of this, Card Account Updater is helpful to obtain updated card details. Our success rate optimization engine may also influence our decision to use Network tokens or Card Account Updater.

Solution

Card Account Updater works directly with card networks to automatically update card information in real-time. It identifies declines due to expiration, loss, theft, or replacement, and retrieves updated information from the networks when available. This ensures a smooth payment process without any interruption to the shopper or your integration experience. Please note that this product is applicable only when a payment is collected with:

• Card details that are saved on file (either with Airwallex or outside) and
• When payment is being collected with a non-zero amount.

Currently, Account Updater is only supported for Visa and MasterCard card payments. American Express support will be coming shortly. Other card networks do not support this feature at this time.

Enablement

We will automatically enable your account with this feature if you are collecting recurring or subscription payments with us. These payments can either be cardholder initiated or merchant initiated payments. There is no enrolment fee, but fees on transaction level will apply.

Payment processing We handle the card details update and payment processing for you automatically. Updated card information (e.g., new card number) will be included in the payment response / webhook after completing the payment process. The only action required on your end is to process and display this updated card information for your customer on the order confirmation page or email. Please see below detailed steps:

1. To initiate the payment process for subscription or recurring payments, no changes are required to your existing integration. Your current workflow will continue to function as it does today. For reference, please review the steps outlined on this page .
   • If you are not storing the card information with us, ensure to populate the necessary fields in the External_recurring_data block in the Create a PaymentIntent API request API. This allows us to identify that the payment is a subscription or a recurring payment. This step remains unchanged for merchants who are already following this process.
2. Airwallex handles the Card Account Updater process in the background and sends you a payment response that includes the updated card information if applicable. These details will be included in the Confirm PaymentIntent API response API and the Payment_intent.succeeded webhook notification.
   • When the card number is updated : Field latest_payment_attempt.payment_method.card.card_updater.number_updated will be set to TRUE
   • When the expiry date is updated : Field latest_payment_attempt.payment_method.card.card_updater.expiry_updated will be set to TRUE
   • The two fields will both be marked as TRUE if both have been updated.

3. Use the updated card information you received in Confirm PaymentIntent API response API / Payment_intent.succeeded webhook based on the boolean flags listed in step#2
   • Updated card number (first six + last four) : latest_payment_attempt.payment_method.card.bin & latest_payment_attempt.payment_method.card.last4
   • Updated expiry date : latest_payment_attempt.payment_method.card.expiry_month & latest_payment_attempt.payment_method.card.expiry_year
4. Outside the payment, you can also receive a notification from us when the saved card details of your shopper are updated. You need to subscribe to our web hook event payment_method.updated to receive updated card number (first six + last four) and expiry date.

For more details on the general flow for card payments, please review our integration guide .

A Card Account Updater fee is charged if the card details are successfully updated through the card account updater service. If no update is necessary or the update fails, the fee will not be charged. Please note that the fee is charged regardless of the payment's final outcome.

To reconcile the Card Account Updater fee, you can use our detailed fee report to identify payments with Account Updater service fee. Alternatively, you can also use our APIs API to fetch this information.

For further information, please consult our pricing schedule or contact your account manager.

It is important to follow the best practices to improve your success rate and to avoid any disputes from your shoppers on the completed payments.

• When collecting subsequent merchant-initiated payments
  • Notify your shoppers via email or text message on the upcoming payment including the amount and the last four digits of the card that will be used .
  • Once the payment is successful, notify your shoppers on the successful payment along with updated card details (last four digits) you received from Aiwallex.
  • Update the shopper profile with new card information when applicable
• When collecting customer initiated payments
  • Update the shopper profile with new card information when applicable
• To reduce the risk of recurring payments being disputed as fraudulent, you may want to enforce 3DS authentication during the initial set up of the subscription/ recurring payment. You can do this by including FORCE_3DS in the three_ds_action field when using the Create a PaymentIntent API request API.