Advanced Authorization Services

Over the last decade major card brands have introduced many new products targeting specific population demographics.  Well-known examples include rewards cards, prepaid cards, and gift cards.  These product lines have introduced significantly more data elements into the payment stream.  The flood of new data creates challenges and opportunities in managing authorizations for sustained and growing profitability. 

Processing platforms that are capable of passing the data in the authorization response enable their merchants to implement better merchandising strategies, prevent customer churn, and increase revenue.  Three specific data sets that can have an immediate impact on your business are: 

• Affluence indicators denote two levels of affluence to payment processors
  • "Mass Affluent" - cardholders with an income greater than $100K 
  • "Affluent" - cardholders with an income greater than $100K, who spend more than $40K per year on the card
• Prepaid indicators identify the card as prepaid.  Non-reloadable Visa and MasterCard prepaid cards also return the available balance. 
• Account updater services allow merchants to submit card data on file to the networks for updating and correcting stale information.  Updater services have emerged that offer account updating as an automated, managed service resulting in faster, more secure and more efficient processing. 

For more detailed information on Advanced Authorization Services download our eBook.