Payment Lifecycle Management: Ensuring Evergreen Card Data

To drive customer loyalty, you must provide them with a seamless payment experience. 

Customers who opt into sharing their payment data expect a quicker checkout process in return. Simply gathering a customer’s payment information once is not enough — you need a system in place to keep that information up-to-date and ready to use the next time that customer is ready to buy. 

Optimizing your payment lifecycle management requires a thorough understanding of how to securely store payment data and keep it refreshed with the latest information. 

Today, we dive into the specifics of payment lifecycle management and how capabilities like Network Tokenization and Lifecycle Management can help you better manage your payment lifecycles. 

What is Payment Lifecycle Management?

The term payment lifecycle management refers to your process for managing stored card details.

When a customer enters their payment information for the first time, they often need to enter key details like security codes, zip codes, and mailing addresses. After that first data entry, customers can opt to have their information stored for a faster checkout experience. 

However, customer information can change over time.

Maybe a customer moved to a new state, or maybe they got a new card with a different PIN. No matter what the case may be, changes to cardholder information can disrupt your payment process and make the checkout experience clunkier. 

For recurring payments, outdated card information can lead to dissatisfied customers and lost revenue. 

With an effective payment lifecycle management strategy, you can maintain the accuracy and validity of your stored card details throughout their lifecycle in your payment system. From initial card registration to ongoing updates, or even card expiration or removal, a clear approach to payment lifecycle management can help you maximize your benefits from stored payment data. 

At the core of payment lifecycle management is the assurance that stored card details are current, accurate, and compliant with the latest payment regulations, such as PCI DSS v4.0. Achieving this involves implementing mechanisms to validate card information upon entry, such as performing address verification and card authentication checks.

Taking a proactive approach to payment lifecycle management is the key to keeping stored card details fresh. By employing advanced technologies and automated systems to support your payment system, you can more effectively prompt users to update their payment information and verify stored data. 

Effective payment lifecycle management also enhances transaction security and reduces the risk of payment failures or errors due to outdated card information. In turn, this enhanced security helps to foster greater trust between you and your customers. 

By employing robust payment lifecycle management practices, you can streamline your payment processes, minimize disruptions, and maintain compliance with industry standards, ultimately enhancing your overall operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Why Keeping Your Card Details Fresh is Vital

Keeping card details up to date and accurate is crucial for several reasons, especially in the context of a company storing payment card data for recurring payments or future purchases.

Here are five reasons why you should be optimizing your payment lifecycle management: 

1. Transaction Success: Accurate and up-to-date card details ensure that transactions are processed successfully. Outdated or incorrect card information can lead to payment failures, resulting in inconvenience for customers and potential loss of revenue for your company.
2. Customer Convenience: Maintaining accurate card details simplifies the purchasing process for your customers, allowing them to enjoy seamless transactions without having to update or re-enter their payment information repeatedly.
3. Risk Management: Outdated card details increase the risk of payment fraud and unauthorized transactions. By regularly verifying and updating card information, you can mitigate the risk of fraudulent activities and protect both your customers and your own financial interests.
4. Compliance: Many regulatory standards, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), require businesses to store and manage payment card data securely. Keeping card details accurate and up to date helps companies remain compliant with these standards.
5. Customer Trust: Maintaining accurate card details demonstrates a commitment to security and professionalism, building trust between you and your customers, who are more likely to feel confident in providing their payment information to trusted providers. 

How Network Tokenization & Lifecycle Management Improve Payment Lifecycles

Optimizing your payment lifecycle management strategy starts with utilizing all of the advanced tools and technologies at your disposal. At Spreedly, we employ our network tokenization and lifecycle management capabilities to maximize your payment lifecycles. 

Network tokenization is the process of replacing card numbers and primary account numbers (PANs) with a randomized token provided by the card brand. These tokens can be dynamically updated, leading to higher authorization rates, improved customer experiences, and streamlined fraud management. 

From a payment lifecycle management perspective, network tokenization helps to simplify recurring payments and reduce declines due to outdated or inaccurate payment details. 

Meanwhile, the lifecycle management tool automatically updates stored payment information. Lifecycle management accomplishes this feat through Spreedly’s partnership with various card brands, allowing for efficient communication regarding changes to a customer’s payment data. 

Most often, factors like card expirations, stolen card information, or account closures lead to stored payment data becoming outdated. With the help of lifecycle mnagement, you can keep your payment system functioning smoothly by safeguarding against disruptions to your card-on-file environment. 

Optimize Your Payment Lifecycle Management with Spreedly

Equipped with capabilities like network tokenization, advanced vaulting, and automatic account updates, Spreedly has the tools you need to upgrade your payment lifecycle management strategy.

One of the most challenging components of payment lifecycle management can be PCI compliance. With Spreedly, you gain access to our PCI Level 1-compliant vault, enabling you to reduce your compliance burden to focus more on front-end customer experiences. 

Spreedly’s Advanced Vault allows you to increase acceptance rates, lower operational costs, and deliver a better overall experience to your cardholders. Together, our vaulting and payment orchestration capabilities provide your business the support necessary to scale upwards and outwards.  

Find out how Spreedly can help you maximize revenue by optimizing payment lifecycle management.

Get in touch with Spreedly today to get started.

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