How To Streamline the Payment Card Certification Process

Credit and debit cards have come to dominate the retail payment domain here in the US and in many other markets.

And for good reason. The cards are a simple, convenient, and relatively safe way to pay for just about anything. We don’t even need to worry about carrying a piece of plastic anymore since the “cards” can be virtualized and easily stored online or loaded into mobile wallets. 

Even as other alternative payment methods, such as Venmo and Zelle, continue to grow in popularity, credit and debit cards continue to be the dominant way that consumers choose to pay at stores and online. In 2023, credit and debit cards (including virtual cards) accounted for greater than 90% of the retail purchase transactions in the USA.

The Use of Credit and Debit Cards is a Win for Everyone

Payment cards have effectively reached “ubiquity” where (nearly) everyone has at least one credit or debit card and where (nearly) every merchant accepts at least one type of card. Industry sources vary, but the average adult in the US carries at least one debit card and between one and three credit cards.

We might describe this environment as a win/win/win/win/win situation.

• Consumers win with an easy, convenient way to pay and they often get access to all sorts of rewards and perks for using their cards. (Consumers who can manage to pay off their balance every month get an extra win).
• Card Issuers win by generating fees (lots of fees) when they convince consumers to hold and use their cards. (Issuers get an extra win when consumers are not able to pay off their balance every month, generating extra interest income.)
• Merchants win because they get to sell more stuff - consumers tend to spend more money when they pay with a card. (Merchants can get an extra win when they issue their own cards or participate in co-branded card programs.)
• Acquirers win by generating fees in support of the merchants they support. (Acquirers can get an extra win by offering add-on services, such as chargeback and dispute support, accounting services, financing, and custom reporting.)
• Card brands and networks win by generating fees whenever transactions are initiated with a branded card that transits across their networks. (Networks and brands can also generate additional wins by providing various add-on services, such as fraud prevention, tokenization, stand-in processing, etc.).

Credit and Debit Card Competition is Fierce, and Change is Ever-Present

Of course, all of these opportunities to win means that the competition is fierce, especially among the four major US card brands that dominate and drive the marketplace.

Collectively, these brands spend billions of dollars every year on marketing and business development, with the end goal of seeing their cards achieve ‘top-of-wallet” positioning, getting more transactions to run on their network “rails” and incentivizing issuers, acquirers, and merchants to use more of their add-on services.

It is in large part this competition between the card brands and their insatiable desire to enter new markets, support every merchant, add new payment types, process every transaction, and deliver the most compelling fee-based services that continue to drive so much of the change that takes place across the payment industry.

These changes typically manifest themselves as updates to the various ISO 8583 specifications published by each network.

However, these modifications are not isolated to the big four networks. Many of the specification “enhancements” made by Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or Amex, will also find their way into the specifications published by regional debit networks, processors, device vendors, and software providers in a never-ending cycle of testing and certification.

While the payment certification process is necessary and plays a significant role in protecting the safety and security of the payment industry for all constituents, including the consumer, it can be cumbersome, time-consuming, and expensive.

Enhance Your Payment Certification Efforts With Paragon

Since Paragon Application Systems supports nearly all of the major ISO 8583 specifications for the major card brands and regional networks, we take on the work of researching the specifications when new mandates are published, analyzing the impacts, making the necessary adjustments to our products, and providing updated versions of the specifications out to our clients.

Part of our core value proposition to clients is minimizing the amount of time and effort they need to spend getting an updated version of new specifications ready for testing and then maximizing the amount of self-testing work (i.e. pre-certification) that they can accomplish before having to schedule the actual certification exercise with a card brand, network or processor.

Not only can we provide the updated specifications to clients, but in many cases, we also support the network test plan. That means testers have immediate access to the current set of core messages and transactions, as well as the specific test scripts, test data, and expected results for both Issuer and Acquirer processing.

The Benefits of Quick and Easy Access to Certification Data

The importance of having quick and easy access to current and accurate data associated with the network certification process cannot be underestimated.

Rather than having limited and valuable resources invest significant time reviewing and analyzing specifications and then having developers make and test all the necessary changes, Paragon clients get the benefit of our research, our agile development environment, and our industry expertise to have updated and fully functional specifications delivered directly to them, ready to use.

Since Paragon's Web FASTest application is server-based, as soon as newly updated specifications are deployed the changes become immediately available to all users - there is no desktop software to maintain or worry about. Developers, testers, and QA resources can begin testing immediately and work to ensure that all internal testing can be completed successfully before they begin the formal network certification process.

Paragon solutions like Web FASTest are specifically designed to provide each client with the features, functionality, and flexibility they need to take total control of their testing environment while improving the speed, efficiency, and accuracy of their testing processes.

Here are several specific ways that Web FASTest helps streamline the certification process for any payment industry participant:

• Data Management: Web FASTest is built around a centralized database where specification-related data can be easily accessed, imported, exported, filtered, and segmented. This makes it much easier to manage and maintain the data and ensure that all resources have access to the information they need to be successful.
• Project Management: Web FASTest enables clients to define, create, and manage specific certification-related projects that contain the tests and associated data needed to execute and track the progress of the projects.
• Remote Access: Web FASTest provides users with 24x7 anytime, anywhere access to their specific projects or sandbox environments. With a simple browser-based interface and no local software to maintain, Web FASTest is easy to scale up to support additional testing resources.

By using technology like Web FASTest to manage network specifications and pre-certify, your organization can streamline the certification process and realize a number of benefits, including:

• Increased staff collaboration and efficiency
• Faster certification timeframes
• Improved quality and accuracy 
• Reduced cost and complexity 
• The best payment experience for your customers

In the next two blogs, we’ll examine the specific certification details related to both issuers and acquirers in more detail.

Interested in learning more about how using Paragon’s solutions to pre-certify can help speed up and streamline the overall certification process for your organization? Talk to one of our payment testing and certification experts today.