merchant-initiated-transactions

Merchant-Initiated Transactions (MIT) allow merchants to charge a customer’s card for a recurring payment without the need for the customer’s input based on prior agreement.

Overview

Boost approval rates and sales by ensuring smooth processing for a variety of transaction types leveraging the network.

Initiate payments on behalf of your customers more safely and securely.

Merchant-Initiated Transactions

secure-with-tokens

Today, many merchants save cardholder Primary Account Numbers (PAN) on their e-commerce sites which can have many downsides. Tokens can provide more security against these issues.

Secure With Tokens

Used by the Issuer or Issuer’s processor to advise of changes to an account. It will update the account information in Discover systems for the specific PAN. It will update the old PAN, expiration date, and/or PAN sequence number of the obsolete card with the replacement PAN, expiration date, and/or PAN sequence number of the new card. 

If the PAN of the old card is mapped to a PAR, the same PAR value will be mapped to the PAN of the new card and associated tokens. There are five reasons for sending an account update call

Account Updater

payment-account-reference

With tokenization, each unique primary account number (PAN) linked to a Payment Account is replaced by a Payment Account Reference (PAR)—a non-financial reference value token that represents the PAN.

PAR provides a consolidated view of transactions associated with a PAN and its affiliated tokens, leading to a number of benefits across the merchant value chain.

Prevent a customer’s actual credit card or account details from being exposed during payments

Improve digital payment security with Payment Account Reference

Making it easier to identify a customer, PAR has many use cases aimed at improving consumer service and experience

Replace your customer’s Primary Account Number (PAN) with a unique, secure token at checkout.

Stored Payment Tokens

We define each product based on two factors: 

 1. Payment experience that the product enables and; 
 2. The relationship between the Cardholder and the Merchant. With Stored Payment Tokens the Cardholder has a direct relationship with the Merchant. The Cardholder intentionally stores their payment credentials with that Merchant for the purpose of recurring and stored payments. With Cloud Wallets the Cardholder has a direct relationship with a wallet for the purpose of paying at multiple Merchants, such as guest checkout.

What is the difference between a Stored Payment Token and a Cloud Wallet solution?

Yes. Discover Stored Payment Tokens are automatically updated through an API connection, eliminating the need for a manual request from the Merchant. Discover Stored Payment Tokens also offer the additional benefit of storing a Payment Token instead of the Cardholder’s PAN. Once available, Merchants will be able to route Debit tokens to Discover Global Network (DGN) or PULSE the same way they do today with PAN.

Do Discover Stored Payment Tokens replace the need for Account Updater?

A Merchant, Acquirer, Payment Gateway, wallet or other digital enabler that supports Merchants can potentially become token requestors. Please reach out to your relationship manager for additional details about becoming a token requestor.

Who can become a token requestor?

At this time, there is not a difference, at the network level, between tokenized vs. non-tokenized transactions. However, there could be slight process nuances with some products. For example, Secure Remote Commerce (SRC) token transactions have a richer authentication process, but the Network is not making decisions or declining transactions for fraud/risk scoring.

Are tokenized transactions treated any differently from a fraud or risk perspective?

A Merchant, an Acquirer, or other entity that supports Merchants can work with us directly to implement the product. 

 1. Legal Agreement Framework. 
 - Acquirer – subject to Stored Payment Tokens language in Acquirer Operating Regulations. 
 - Direct Merchant - subject to Stored Payment Tokens language in Merchant Operating Regulations. 
 - Payment Gateway or other entity that works with Merchants – will need to execute Payment Enabler Product Agreement (PEPA) 
 2. Connection and Certification. 
 - Client provides URL endpoints to connect to our API and certifies their code to test cases. 
 3. Testing and Launch. 
 - Once certification is complete and launch plan is in place, client is boarded in production and launch begins. <br><br> 

 <p>NOTE: For all environments, Third-Party Gateway certificates must be certificate authority (CA) signed as this is a standard production gateway requirement. JSON Web Encryption (JWE) certificates can be self-signed.</p>

What is the implementation process for a Merchant to use Discover Stored Payment Tokens?

Tokenize account PANs entered by customers to secure future payments and minimize risk.

Card Enrollment

Keep your customer’s payment info up-to-date with Issuer lifecycle management features.

What Are Merchant-Initiated Transactions?

Use Cases of MIT

Merchant-Initiated Transactions Unlock eCommerce