Visa Stored Credential Transaction Framework
This page provides an overview of Visa’s Stored Credential framework as well as how it may affect your organization and your constituents.
What is Visa Stored Credential Transaction framework?
Visa Stored Credential Transaction framework is a Visa mandate to identify the initial storage and subsequent use of payment information (such as a credit card number or payment token) that is stored to process future payments or donations for a cardholder.
What are the benefits of Visa Stored Credential Transaction framework?
Identifying stored credential transactions allows the card networks to provide higher authorization approval rates and completed payments or donations while enabling Blackbaud to include Visa cards in its Credit Card Updater service.
How will this impact Blackbaud customers?
When updating or storing card information in the Blackbaud Payment Service (BBPS) secure vault, Visa cards will be authorized and validated at the time they are stored, even if they are not processed immediately. For Visa cards that are not being processed immediately, these cards will also have a $0.00 authorization performed on the card before storing the card information in BBPS to confirm the information entered is correct. This is a requirement of the Visa Stored Credential Transaction framework.
If the payment information is not approved at the time of authorization, users will receive the following message: “Unable to authenticate the card information.” If you receive this message, you will need to contact the cardholder to verify their card details or obtain alternate payment information before reattempting to save the card again.
Users benefit from authorizing a card when storing it because they will be informed of invalid or incorrect credit card details at the time of card entry rather than when a transaction fails when attempting to charge the card at a later date. The user has a better opportunity to obtain alternate payment information before processing the transaction.
When will these changes take effect?
Blackbaud continues to monitor the stored credential transaction and authorization space to ensure that our customers see minimal impact while still complying with card brand regulations and best practices. We are currently targeting a Q1 2020 implementation date.
Which Blackbaud solutions does this affect?
All organizations that use BBMS in their Blackbaud solutions to process payments will be subject to the Visa Stored Credential Transaction framework. With the vast majority of payments, you will see no change. Blackbaud solutions such as Blackbaud CRM™ and Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT® that store payment data for processing at a later time will now validate card data before storing it. Users might receive a message indicating that the application is unable to authenticate the card information when attempting to authorize and store the card. Organizations that do not have a BBMS account, and instead use a 3rd party “Tier 3” gateway to process payments in their Blackbaud solutions, are not expected to be affected by these changes.
Will my donors and constituents notice anything different because of this?
Most supporters and constituents will not see any impact at all. In some cases, a $0.00 pending authorization (or, very occasionally, $0.01 or $1.00) may temporarily appear on their card statement as a pending authorization, before it is removed (typically in 1-7 days). No fund is charged as part of this authorization. You should be aware of this step in case your organization receives an inquiry from a constituent as to why a zero or very low-value pending authorization appears on their account statement.
In the interim, Blackbaud Checkout now displays cardholder consent language when storing a card for future use or updating an already-stored card to comply with Visa Stored Credential framework requirements. Your supporters will see this when making a payment via Blackbaud Checkout.
Where can I learn more?
Read Visa’s overview: https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/global/support-legal/documents/stored-credential-transaction-framework-vbs-10-may-17.pdf
Details are also available in the following Knowledgebase article: https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/191399