Don’t Let Revenue Expire: The Benefits of a Card Account Updater (CAU)

Expired credit card information can create a lot of headaches if you have customers with frequent or recurring purchases. Ecommerce businesses lose $18 billion in sales revenue yearly due to cart abandonment, with 30 percent of shoppers saying they will abandon their cart if they have to re-enter their credit card details.  

Each payment declined because of an expired card represents revenue that may be lost forever. Additionally, failed payments due to expired cards can cause an interruption in services or even motivate customers to cancel your service.

We dove deep into this topic in a recent webinar for IXOPAY customers. Jenny Anthony (Sr. Manager, Technical Support), Ryan Lewis (Sr Product Manager), and Kyle Spencer (Sr. Customer Success Manager) shared their insight on why organizations should consider a Card Account Updater (CAU) solution. Watch the video below or continue reading to learn the key takeaways.

The biggest benefit of an account updater solution is that it reduces transaction declines from expired cards. This lost revenue is especially important for organizations with recurring transactions, such as businesses with subscription services and nonprofit organizations receiving monthly donations. 

But it also benefits ecommerce companies that store customer payment information for frequent purchases. Requiring a customer to re-enter new card information creates additional friction that could get in the way of a purchase. 

Based on our experience, 20-35 percent of cards will update in the first month, followed by 7-8 percent each month after. Additional benefits of updating payment information include improved customer experience and reduced administrative burden of contacting customers to update payment information.

However, it’s important to know that some industries, like Gambling and Telemarketing, are restricted from using account updater services.

For businesses with recurring monthly payments, it’s best to start updating card information 30-60 days from the card expiration date because this is typically when issuing banks send new cards. However, since many people wait until closer to the expiration date to activate their cards, you should continue to check non-updated cards every two weeks until the expiration date.

Businesses that only bill their customers once a year, such as an annual insurance premium, should follow a different strategy. It’s not uncommon for cards to be replaced before expiration because they are lost, compromised, or worn out. As a result, we recommend these companies check for updates on every card 1-2 weeks before the annual transaction is scheduled to occur.

Organizations looking for an account updater solution should ensure they can receive updates from all major card brands under one file format or API call. This prevents the need for multiple solutions. 

It’s also important to minimize additional PCI scope when updating card details. Some solutions may require you to provide the card’s primary account number (PAN) to receive an update. Having this level of visibility to the PAN can significantly increase your PCI compliance burden, so you should look for solutions that prevent you from needing to access the PAN.

Finally, if you use multiple payment processors, you should look for a processor-agnostic solution. This will allow you to update cards across all of your processors rather than having to use different solutions for each processor.

IXOPAY offers a standalone Account Updater product and card updates as part of the Payment Orchestration Platform. Both products allow you to update cards for all major brands, work across multiple processors, and keep you out of PCI scope.

The orchestration platform automatically performs monthly updates on vaulted cards. You can also access data on the number of expired and expiring cards in the payment orchestration dashboard. The standalone product allows for card updates upon request via API or batch file.

IXOPAY also offers Network Tokens, which have the capability to update payment information. 

If you are interested in updating card information, request a demo, and we can help you determine which solution is right for you.

About IXOPAY

IXOPAY simplifies complex payment processes for global merchants. Merchants can choose between an all-in-one payment orchestration platform and payment optimization modules covering areas such as omnichannel tokenization, 3DS, and network tokens. Depicting the entire transaction lifecycle from checkout to settlement and reconciliation, IXOPAY’s best-of-breed payment orchestration platform is PCI DSS Level 1 certified and highly scalable.

A single API allows merchants to integrate around 200 payment providers offering hundreds of global, regional and alternative payment methods. The platform supports smart transaction routing with cascading, state-of-the-art risk and fraud management, fully automated reconciliation and settlements processing, comprehensive reporting and access to hundreds of acquirers, payment service providers and alternative payment methods.

Trusted by many national and international businesses, IXOPAY has offices in both Austria and the USA.