MasterCard and Discover are requiring that all merchants support the following:
Balance response transactions — For prepaid and gift cards, once the card has been used, the remaining account balance will be transmitted along with the authorization response. The remaining balance must be printed on the customer receipt, displayed on the Web page or point-of-sale terminal, or both.
Partial authorization transactions — When a customer’s transaction amount exceeds the balance available on their debit, prepaid or gift card, instead of declining the transaction, a partial authorization for the amount available to the customer will be returned. This will allow the customer to pay for the remaining amount with another form of payment. This is called a split-tender transaction.
Authorization reversals — An authorization reversal is a real-time transaction initiated when the customer decides that they do not want to proceed with the transaction, or if the merchant cannot complete the transaction for any reason. Authorization reversals free up the customer’s available balance on their debit, prepaid or gift card.
MasterCard’s rule changes go into effect May 1, 2010, and Discover’s rule changes go into effect April 16, 2010. However, many payment gateways have worked with their supported payment processors to extend these deadlines. One of the more popular payment gateways, Authorize.net has outlined their anticipated support for these regulations by payment processor. For more information direct your browser to: http://www.authorize.net/support/pafaqs/#when
We are very much aware of these changes and taking steps to make insure that our system will support these requirements. Since many of the requirements require changes at the transaction level, we are working with our supported payment gateways to better understand the changes they expect to make in their systems so we can adjust accordingly.
