Overview

The Card Account Updater (CAU) service is a game changer for merchants that use the Virtual Terminal's recurring billing and/or store customer profiles in CardPointe. With this new offering, out-of-date debit/credit card information (card number, expiration date, etc.) is updated to avoid recurring payment interruptions by reducing the frequency of declines. The best part? Updates are done behind the scenes with no customer intervention.

Benefits

Card Account Updater reduces the number of declined or late payments resulting from outdated card information by automatically retrieving the new card details from Visa, Mastercard, and Discover when a new card is issued to your customers.

Card Account Updater is the perfect solution for merchants that offer auto-pay for recurring billing; It reduces the risk of late and declined payments for merchants and helps to prevent service disruptions for customers.

Using Card Account Updater to automatically retrieve new card data can help your business to:

  • Stabilize and maintain cashflow by reducing late and declined payments
  • Reduce involuntary churn caused by expired cards or new account numbers
  • Reduce efforts and costs associated with merchant outreach due to outdated payment information
  • Improve customer satisfaction by avoiding interruptions in products and services as a result of nonpayment

How It Works

Card Account Updater is an optional feature that must be enabled for your merchant account. Once enabled, all of your stored customer payment accounts are monitored on a continual basis to determine if the saved card data has become obsolete.

Some of the most common reasons that cause a customer's card data to become obsolete include:

  • A new card is issued due to suspected or confirmed fraud
  • A replacement card is issued with an updated expiration date
  • The account transitions to a different class or tier of card that requires a change in account number

When the Card Account Updater service receives updated card information from Visa, Mastercard, or Discover, your stored customer payment information is automatically updated with the new details, and can be used for any individual payments made using the CardPointe Virtual Terminal, or used for any upcoming scheduled payments that are part of a billing plan.

You can view card updates in CardPointe, on the Reporting > Card Updates tab. The Updater History table displays detailed information on all card account updates that occurred within the past year. See the CardPointe Web App User's Guide for more information. 

Eligibility

Merchant Types

  • Full merchant services accounts

Excludes gateway-only accounts

Platforms

  • North + Rapid Connect

Getting Started

Contact your sales representative for pricing details, questions, or to add Card Account Updater to your account.

Pricing

Merchant Cost

  • Monthly Fee: $10.00
  • Per Update Fee: $0.40 (this value will default to $0.50 in CoPilot, but can be adjusted)

While these fees appear as default values in CoPilot, agents are free to adjust the merchant costs as they see fit.

Note: Agents are not allowed to charge merchants less than the agent costs listed below.

Agent Cost

  • One-time Setup Fee: $250.00 billed through residuals the first time a card is updated
  • Monthly Fee: $10.00 + 50% rev share above the buy rate
  • Per Update Fee: $0.25 + 50% rev share above the buy rate

A 'Per Update Fee' is charged for each credit card that receives updated information from the card brands. If a card is checked for expired information but not updated, this fee will not be applied at the agent or merchant level.

Registration

Agent Registration

To become eligible to sell Card Account Updater, please follow the below steps:

  1. Submit a Profile Maintenance ticket in CoPilot to request access to the Card Account Updater service
  2. The Partner Admin team will provide a partner addendum for you to sign
  3. Sign and return the addendum - Card Account Updater will be enabled and you will be notified in the ticket comments that you can begin selling the service

Merchant Registration

  1. New Merchants via the Digital Application: Select the Account Updater add-on during the application process - merchants will sign off on the add-on via the digital application
  2. Existing Merchants or Paper Applicants: Submit a signed paper addendum in the Add-Ons section of the merchant's Account Details

CAU Status

View the Status field of the CardPointe Account Updater add-on within the merchant account, which displays one of the following:

CAU Status Example

Marketing

FAQs

Product Details

How do merchants register for Card Account Updater?

  • Navigate to a merchant's account in CoPilot: Account Details > Add-Ons > Additional Services > Account Updater
    • Net New Merchants:
      • Merchants will be prompted to sign the account updater agreement during the application process
        • Digital applications: Select the Account Updater add-on in the application process - the merchants signs via the digital application
        • Paper Applications: Submit a signed paper addendum in the Add-Ons section of the merchant's Account Details - the addendum can be downloaded from the the 'Build Agreements' button on the Account Details
    • Existing Merchants:
      • Download the paper Account Updater Agreement from the 'Build Agreements' button on the Account Details
      • Send the paper Account Updater Agreement to the merchant to sign
      • Attach the agreement to the Account Updater Add-On by clicking the edit button
  • This will then place the account into the queue for registration processing - registration turn-around time is 7 business days

Will merchants get declines with the Card Account Updater?

Cards will be declined if an authorization occurs in the time between when the card expires and when the update takes effect. Cards are submitted for checks on a daily basis, and updates can take up to five days to become available.

What do the Update Responses mean?

  • Account Canceled - The card account was closed or canceled.
  • Deleted - The customer profile was deleted, or the associated token was unenrolled from the Card Account Updater service.
  • Error Submitting - There was an error submitting the card account or token, and it will not be checked for updates.
  • Invalid Token - The token associated with the card account is invalid and it will not be checked for updates.
  • New Expiration - The card account was updated with a new expiration date.
  • New Number - The card account was updated with a new card number.
  • Opted Out - The card account has been opted out of the Card Account Updater service by the merchant, and it will not be checked for updates.
  • Rejected by Brands - The card account was rejected by the card brand, and it will not be checked for updates.

Are all customer credit cards updated when the batch is run?

All cards (not just the default) underneath a customer profile are sent to check for an update. In CardPointe, there is no way to turn off a card from being checked. 

When is the per update fee charged?

The per update fee is charged for each credit card that receives updated information from the card brands. If a card is checked for expired information but not updated, there is no per update fee charged.

There will still be charges for updates with Visa's ContactC program, where the card information has changed but the customer has opted out of allowing Visa to share the changes.

How will fees appear on the merchant's statement?

The monthly and per update fees are line items on the merchant statement that comes directly from First Data. The statements show the number of updates that occurred, multiplied by the per update cost.

How will a merchant know which cards have been updated?

There is currently no reporting feature in CardPointe or CoPilot to allow merchants/agents to see which profiles that have been updated. This is an enhancement we have planned for the future.

Which high risk MCCs are excluded from using Card Account Updater?

The card brand regulations require merchants have a valid use case for the updater service (ie. subscription services, recurring billing, etc.). Per the regulations, the following MCCs are excluded from this service:

  • 5962
  • 5966
  • 5967
  • 7995

    Note: Merchants with these MCCs are able to apply for the add-on, but will be filtered out before registration is sent to the card brands.

    Agent Information

    Which partners can sell Card Account Updater?

    All ISOs can sell Card Account Updater.

    To get started, please open a Profile Maintenance ticket in CoPilot - the Partner Admin team will then provide a partner addendum for you to sign.

    What if a partner acquires multiple types of merchants, some of which qualify and some of which don't for this service?

    Partners who board accounts that are both eligible and ineligible for Card Account Updater (ex: Omaha and North) will only see the add-on available for accounts that are eligible.

    How can a partner see which merchants have Card Account Updater?

    Partners can see which MIDs have the product by looking at the merchant's add-ons (CoPilot > Account Details > Add-ons).

    How will partners see the fees on their residuals?

    Partners will see three line items:

    • Account Updater Transaction Fee
    • Account Updater Monthly Fee
    • Account Updater Setup Fee

    The expense will appear underneath one MID (the account with the highest MID #) the first month that the partner has any activity in the Transaction Fee and Monthly Fee lines.

    One-time setup fee:

    • Only charged to the lowest level ISO on a sales code
    • Individuals (not partner entities) are each charged the fee (i.e. all reps under one ISO office will receive the fee)
    • Partners will not be billed more than once for the setup fee - this is a per partner fee, not a per merchant fee