Payment Instrument

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A payment instrument is a payment device (i.e a card) allowing a user to carry out transactions (purchases, returns) at a merchant. Payment instruments are card numbers that have either a physical plastic issued or digitally issued without a physical plastic (i.e. Virtual card). Payment Instruments can also be tokenized by the cardholder so they can be used in mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay.

The following actions may be configured on a Payment Instrument within the PCaaSA platform:

  • Issue payment instrument
  • Block/Unblock card
  • Report Lost/Stolen
  • Close a payment instrument

A payment instrument, whether physical, digital or tokenized, stores the data necessary for a merchant to initiate an authorization when a user makes a transaction. The merchant then receives the authorization response from PCaaSA via payment network (e.g Visa) notifying if the transaction was approved or declined.

A payment instrument requires the following attributes for a merchant to initiate an authorization request:

  • Primary Account Number (PAN) – A unique number printed on the card
  • Expiration Date
  • Name
  • Card Verification Value (CVV) – A unique verifier for the associated PAN
  • PIN (if applicable) – A unique PIN associated to the PAN

Payment Instruments may be issued in the following form factors:

  • Physical plastic
    This is a traditional plastic card which can be used to make physical point of sale (POS) as well as ‘card not present’ transactions.

  • Virtual card
    This is a digitally issued card with no plastic component. A virtual card can make ‘card not present’ transactions.

Once a payment instrument is issued, a mobile token may be created by the user for use in digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Mobile Token

A mobile token is generated by replacing the sensitive data included in either a physical plastic or a virtual card into a machine-readable token. The token then serves as a reference to the physical plastic or a virtual card when added to a Mobile Wallet like Apple Pay or Google Pay

Spend controls associated with a payment instrument may be configured to limit transaction decisioning based on the following constraints:

  • Transaction frequency
  • MCC code(s)
  • Amount limits
  • Merchant location
  • Merchant Name
  • Date range

PI Statuses

A payment instrument (PI) can have one of the following statuses:

  • Open
    A PI in an ‘Open’ status allows authorizations to be normally processed. A PI with an ‘Open’ status can be changed to ‘Blocked or ‘Closed’.

  • Blocked
    A PI in a ‘Blocked’ status will prevent authorizations from being processed. You can set a PI status to ‘Blocked’ for Fraud prevention purposes. A PI with a ‘Blocked’ status can be changed to ‘Open’ or ‘Closed’.

  • Closed
    A PI in a ‘Closed’ status will prevent authorizations from being processed. A PI with an ‘Closed’ status cannot be changed to ‘Open or ‘Blocked’.

Activation

Payment Instruments must be activated before use. PIs may be configured to be activated upon issuance or to require activation by the user. In general, physical cards shipped to the user are not activated while virtual cards are issued as activated and ready for immediate use.

Lost/Stolen Re-issuance

  • If a payment instrument is reported as lost/stolen with confirmed fraud, a new PI is created.

  • If a payment instrument is reported as lost/stolen with no fraud activity reported, the same PI is used with a new expiration date.

Upon activating a replacement plastic, the previous plastic will automatically be de-activated.

Updated almost 2 years ago