Learn how your business can use Account Updater in conjunction with Element’s TransForm™ tokenization technology to receive seamless account updates to credit cards securely stored on file.

Maintaining accurate customer data for recurring charges and card-on-file billing can be a challenge. Credit and debit cards expire or are cancelled by cardholders for reasons like fraud, loss and theft. Businesses that process recurring/card-on-file payments to customer cards experience significant expenses as a result of these expired and cancelled cards, in addition to the hours spent contacting customers for updated information. On any billing cycle, a merchant may be unable to bill 25 to 30 percent of their customers because of invalid expiration dates or card numbers.

Element Payment Services has partnered with Visa, and MasterCard to address this challenge through technology called Account Updater. By using Account Updater, merchants can receive automatic updates to existing customer records to prevent billing to expired or invalid cards. Consequently, merchants can reduce declined transactions and authorization-related chargebacks and expenses.

Account Updater works in conjunction with TransForm™ tokenization technology, which securely stores cardholder information offsite in a PCI DSS compliant, secure facility. Element’s system has the ability to query the card brands (Visa and MasterCard) for updated cardholder information. If the information is available, a cardholder’s account on file will be automatically updated and available thereafter for future billing.

The Account Updater is designed to work in two ways:

• Decline-Triggered Requests for Update: The software application is set to auto flag declines. If a merchant is enrolled in the Account Updater service, every time a TransForm™ tokenization transaction is declined, the card is automatically flagged for update. At the end of the day all cards that have been flagged are sent to Account Updater.
• Merchant-Initiated Requests for Update: The software application is configured in a manner that allows each merchant to specifically check a card stored using TransForm™ tokenization to see if an update is available (The card does not need to have been previously declined). When a merchant tokenizes an account record, they can choose to flag the record to be enrolled in the Account Updater program. This will allow merchants to check for updates prior to a customer’s scheduled billing date.

The process for a customer’s card to be flagged, then to be updated with the proper information usually takes four to five business days.

Both Acquired and Gateway merchants using Element’s TransForm™ tokenization technology can enroll in the Account Updater program. For more information on the Account Updater program please contact us.

How Does Account Updater Work?