🔁Saving payment methods & recurring payments

Setting up and managing recurring payments

This sections deals with the various ways in which you can save a payment method and how to use them in recurring payments

PaySwitcher supports the following ways of saving a payment method used in a successful payment:

1. Saving for future customer on-session payments (COF-CIT)

2. Saving for future customer off-session payments (MIT)

💳 Saving a payment method for future on-session payments (COF CIT)

To improve conversion rates and eliminate friction for the customer during checkout, you can save the customer's card so that they wouldn't have to enter the card details every time. This is also minimises the risk of the customer entering incorrect card details.

Saving for future on-session payments implies that the customer will be available online during the checkout and can authenticate the payment by entering CVV or complete 3DS verification. These are known as Card-on-File Customer Initiated Transactions (COF-CIT).

This is typically limited for card payment methods and not for wallets (viz. Apple Pay) and other APMs.

For saving a customer's payment method used in a successful transaction:

• Pass the following field in the /payments create request to indicate your intention to save the payment method

"setup_future_usage": "on_session"

• Pass the customer's consent to store the card in the /payments/:id:/confirm request

"customer_acceptance": {
        "acceptance_type": "online",
        "accepted_at": "1963-05-03T04:07:52.723Z",
        "online": {
            "ip_address": "in sit",
            "user_agent": "amet irure esse"
        }
    }

If you are using the PaySwitcher SDK, the customer_acceptance is sent in the /payments/:id:/confirm request on the basis of customer clicking the save card radio button

Note: Ensure to enable this functionality using the displaySavedPaymentMethodsCheckbox property during SDK integration

The customer's consent to save their card is expressed through this checkbox

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💾 Saving a payment method for future MIT payments

Let's say, you want to save a customer's payment method to charge them at a later point without the need for additional cardholder authentication. This is done by raising an MIT (Merchant Initiated Transaction) exemption to the card network by the payment processor with reference to an initial transaction where the customer has authorised recurring charges. These are typically used when you want to charge a customer periodically/sporadically with a flexibility on the amount to be charged and number of charges.

Based on the payment processors support, this functionality is also available for other payment methods like Apple Pay and Google Pay Wallets.

To save a customer's payment method used in a successful transaction for future MIT payments:

• Pass the following field in the /payments create request to indicate your intention to save the payment method

"setup_future_usage": "off_session"

• Pass the customer's consent to store the card in the /payments/:id:/confirm request

"customer_acceptance": {
        "acceptance_type": "online",
        "accepted_at": "1963-05-03T04:07:52.723Z",
        "online": {
            "ip_address": "in sit",
            "user_agent": "amet irure esse"
        }
    }

If you are using the PaySwitcher SDK, the customer_acceptance is sent in the /payments/:id:/confirm request on the basis of customer clicking the save card radio button

Note: Ensure to enable this functionality using the displaySavedPaymentMethodsCheckbox property during SDK integration

Retrieve the payment_method_id that was created against the above payment by retrieving the payment. You will get the payment_method_id in the response. Store this ID for making subsequent MIT payments.

curl --location 'https://sandbox.payswitcher.com/payments/<pass the payment_id>' \
--header 'Accept: application/json' \
--header 'api-key: <enter your PaySwitcher API key here>' \

---

💸 Using a saved payment method to do a MIT payment

Once a customer's payment method is saved for MIT payments you can start charging the customer by sending the following details in the /payments request

"off_session": true,
"recurring_details": {
        "type": "payment_method_id",
        "data": "pm_lmTnIO5EdCiiMgRPrV9x" //pass the payment method id here
}

You would be using the same payment_method_id that was returned in the /payments/:id:/retrieve response for the initial transaction where the customer authorized saving for future use.

To get all the payment methods saved for a customer use the List Customer Payment Methods API.

curl --request GET \
  --url https://sandbox.payswitcher.com/customers/{customer_id}/payment_methods \
  --header 'api-key: <api-key>'

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FAQ:

1. I want to onboard my customers by collecting their card details, authenticate and store for future MIT payments without charging them now. How can I vault a payment method with PaySwitcher?

PaySwitcher allows you to vault a payment method without charging the customer by using the Zero Amount Authorization flow where you can authenticate and store your customer's card. Later you can make MIT payments using this payment method.

This is specifically useful when you have a separate Add Payment Method flow/onboarding journey where you don't want to debit the customer but store and authenticate their payment method. Refer to this page to see how to use it - Link