SecureNet Meets MasterCard and Discover Prepaid Card Mandates
In March of 2010, two major credit card brands, MasterCard and Discover, issued mandates with the goal of providing improved experiences for prepaid cardholders. The deadline for these mandates was November 1, 2011. SecureNet completed the product enhancements necessary to support these mandates in January of 2011.
The mandates required merchants to support the following transaction types:
1. Partial Authorization (or Partial Approval), in which the merchants partially approves a transaction if a cardholder has an insufficient balance in their debit, prepaid, or gift card to cover their full purchase.
2. Split tender Transaction, in which the cardholder can pay part of the balance due with a debit, prepaid, or gift card, then pay the remaining balance owed using another form of payment.
3. Real-time Void (reversal) in which the merchant can immediately reverse an authorized transaction if the cardholder decides not to proceed with the transaction and the transaction has not settled. This would free up the cardholder’s available balance immediately instead of requiring the customer to wait until the authorization expires.
For certain types of cards, the mandates also require merchants to print the prepaid card balance on the customer receipt or display it on a customer-facing display or web page, or both.
“Our continued goal is to stay ahead of the game as a leading player in the payments industry,” Joseph Eason, VP of Customer Operations at SecureNet, said. “In addition to the November mandates, we offer merchants a wide range of advanced capabilities and flexibility that lead to improved experiences for both merchants and their customers.”
SecureNet customers can contact Merchant Support at 888.231.0060 option 2 for information on how to handle partial authorizations and other actions specified in the MasterCard and Discover mandates.
