Yandex.Checkout to help merchants reduce the number of declined transactions

April 9, 2020

Yandex.Checkout launches a new feature for businesses: payment acceptance utilizing the automatic update of card details for Visa and Mastercard bank cards. Using this feature, companies can reduce the number of declined transactions on payments made via expired, lost, or blocked cards.

Yandex.Checkout’s new service utilizes the tokenization technology to automatically verify that the bank card details are relevant and update them in case the cardholder has issued a new card, and then process the payment. The new solution will help companies that operate on a subscription basis or use one-click payments to keep loyal customers.

According to a Yandex.Checkout research, every month, Russian online companies lose around $1.3M (100M Russian rubles) on transactions that were declined due to card’s expiration, loss, or blocking. Around half of that amount accounts for the expired bank cards.

Payment acceptance via card details’ auto updates is simple. When the customer saves the details after the first transaction, Yandex.Checkout exchanges the data for a special token from Visa or Mastercard. For further payments, Yandex.Checkout uses this token to verify the card data with the payment system. If the customer reissues the card, the information will be updated automatically, and the transaction will be successful.

«Payments with tokens are already actively used by European online stores. Yandex.Checkout is the first provider to introduce such option to the Russian market. Thanks to this new feature, companies that accept payments via subscriptions or a pay-in-one-click model can reduce the number of transactions that would usually be declined due to a Visa or Mastercard’s expiration, loss, or blocking, increasing companies’ profits,» said Yulia Gorelova, Head of payment business at Yandex.Checkout.

The new service is suitable for companies of all sizes and fields of occupation. For the subscription scenario, it can be a paid TV provider, internet access provider, online movie theater, classifieds service, software provider, loan repayment app, charity, or crowdfunding platform. Pay-in-one-click systems with saved cards are usually utilized by online retailers, game stores, food delivery services or, for example, taxis.

The new feature comes without any additional charges. Limits for token payments in Yandex.Checkout are the same as for bank cards. Yandex.Checkout has already enabled the service for a small number of merchants and will provide the access to all the partners in the near future.