Account Updater
Every billing period, merchants with automatic payment arrangements brace for the same news: how many card payments will bounce back. Bounce-backs not only frustrate and inconvenience cardholders, they also jeopardize revenue flows. What’s more, they increase customer service demand by forcing merchants to contact customers for updated information or alternate payment arrangements.
Transaction denial and exception item processing come with significant management and operating costs. Moreover, recurring payment decline rates can average 25% to 30% - much higher than the 5% average for face-to-face transactions. Cardholder account information changes occur for a variety of reasons, including upgrades, portfolio conversions, card expirations, lost or stolen cards and account closures.
The IP Pay Account Updater ensures uninterrupted service for cardholders and uninterrupted payment for merchants. It seamlessly updates “card on file” account information without impacting cardholders. Perhaps most important, it can maintain and build customer satisfaction, making them more loyal and less likely to switch to another merchant.
By automatically maintaining the accuracy of customer data, Account Updater prevents recurring billing disruptions due to account changes. Account Updater extends the life of automatic payment arrangements by helping secure these ongoing, revenue-generating relationships, all while locking in revenue, reducing processing costs, maintaining service continuity and strengthening cardholder satisfaction.
How the Account Updater Works
- Participating issuers submit account changes to the Association databases
- Registered merchants submit account number queries through IPPay
- IPPay submits these account queries to the appropriate Association database
- Association matches account queries to issuer submissions, then returns matches to IPPay
- IPPay returns matched account query records to the specific merchants
- Merchant take return and update their billing files with the changed account information
Account Updater Benefits
- Ability to enable the electronic exchange of updated account information among participating Merchants, IP Pay and Issuers
- The power of a streamlined process to prevent disruption of customer relationships that result from changes to cardholder account information
- Increased sales, more approved transactions and higher levels of customer satisfaction due to cost savings achieved by not having to manually contact customers
How Merchants Benefit
- Helps retain customers
- Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty
- Increases approved card transactions by reducing authorization declines
- Reduces customer service expense by preventing interruption of the payment relationship
How Cardholders Benefit
- No need to manually contact service providers
- Minimizes late payment / cancellation / reactivation charges
- Ensures service continuity
- Increased satisfaction
