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What is Account Updater?

The Credit card networks in the US and Europe offer a service called Account Updater (AU) that provides up-to-date subscriber credit card information to merchants who store card information for recurring billing. American Express also offers a similar process, called Card Refresher. Subscriber credit card information can change for a number of reasons including the following:
  • Lost or stolen cards
  • Change of address
  • Account upgrade
  • Expired Card
The issuing banks that participate in the AU program provide updated credit card information to the Visa and MasterCard networks regularly. Payment Providers submit daily queries to Visa and MasterCard to check for account updates and provide the query responses to participating merchants in daily reports. Vindicia can receive updated account information from payment processors on behalf of the merchant and make the required updates to the subscriber credit card information in the Vindicia database. Tip: If available, use AU when using Subscribe’s credit card payment method. It improves subscriber’s retention by keeping account information up-to-date, without subscriber input. This way, subscriptions remain active and the subscribers continue to receive uninterrupted service. Vindicia offers the AU service to all its merchants in a reactive mode, which means that it is attempted only when the credit card payment is declined. However, Subscribe also offers an extended preventive mode for specific payment providers, which means that it runs Account Updater for the credit cards even before credit card payment is declined. For more details about Account Updater, see the Everything you need to know topic in wiki

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Configuring Account Updater (generic settings)

Merchants who want to use the AU process, sign an agreement with their payment provider. Merchants that want to use their own instance of Account Updater can use the following setting:
Merchants that do not have their own instance of Account Updater are submitted using Vindicia’s merchant account. Merchants without their own instance of Account updater must use the following setting: