Scheme update (API)
A scheme update is a request that your system can manually submit to Secure Trading using our Webservices API, in the days preceding a recurring payment, to check if the customer’s stored payment credentials are still up-to-date. As part of this process, we will contact the Visa Account Updater (VAU) and Mastercard’s Automatic Billing Updater (ABU) systems to check for updates, and store any updated payment credentials on our secure servers for future payments.
Requirements
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- We support both Visa Account Updater (VAU) and Mastercard’s Automatic Billing Updater (ABU) systems. Therefore the scheme update request will support any Mastercard and Visa-branded cards.
- Card scheme updates are only supported by participating card issuers. If the card issuer doesn’t contact VAU or ABU to provide updated payment credentials when a new card is issued, we will be unable to successfully retrieve the updated payment credentials.
- If you haven’t already done so, you will need to contact our Support Team before implementing scheme updates. They will be able to assist you in determining whether we support scheme updates for your acquiring bank, and then enable the functionality on your site reference(s).
- When enabling scheme updates, our Support Team will also configure notifications that send the results of scheme update checks back to your system (we explain these in greater detail later in this document):
- Email reports – We send an email to an address of your choosing, which contains a table of the results of scheme updates, received by Secure Trading in the last 24 hours.
- URL notifications – Your system will receive one URL notification for each scheme update, containing any updated payment credentials.
Process overview
Note: Depending on the acquirer, this may take a number of days to process. We recommend submitting the SCHEMEUPDATE request three business days ahead of when you need to process a new payment.
We will store the updated payment type, card number and expiry date. These details will be passed back to your system via URL notification (the card number is masked for security purposes).
1. Submit the scheme update
Your system will manually submit a SCHEMEUPDATE request and then parse and interpret the response returned.
It may take a number of days for the checks to be completed (we recommend allowing up to three business days). Please wait until you have received the URL notification with the results of the checks from VAU and ABU before processing another request.
SCHEMEUPDATE request example
#!/usr/bin/python import securetrading stconfig = securetrading.Config() stconfig.username = "[email protected]" stconfig.password = "Password1^" st = securetrading.Api(stconfig) schemeupdate = { "sitereference": "test_site12345", "requesttypedescriptions": ["SCHEMEUPDATE"], "parenttransactionreference": "23-9-80000" } strequest = securetrading.Request() strequest.update(schemeupdate) stresponse = st.process(strequest) #stresponse contains the transaction response
<?php
if (!($autoload = realpath(__DIR__ . '/../../../autoload.php')) && !($autoload = realpath(__DIR__ . '/../vendor/autoload.php'))) {
throw new Exception('Composer autoloader file could not be found.');
}
require_once($autoload);
$configData = array(
'username' => '[email protected]',
'password' => 'Password1^',
);
$requestData = array(
'sitereference' => 'test_site12345',
'requesttypedescriptions' => array('SCHEMEUPDATE'),
'parenttransactionreference' => '23-9-80000'
);
$api = \Securetrading\api($configData);
$response = $api->process($requestData);
var_dump($response->toArray());
?>
curl --user [email protected]:Password1^ <DOMAIN>/json/ -H "Content-type: application/json" -H "Accept: application/json" -X POST -d '{ "alias":"[email protected]", "version": "1.00", "request": [{ "sitereference": "test_site12345", "requesttypedescriptions": ["SCHEMEUPDATE"], "parenttransactionreference": "23-9-80000" }]}'
{"alias":"[email protected]","version":"1.00","request":[{"sitereference":"test_site12345","requesttypedescriptions":["SCHEMEUPDATE"],"parenttransactionreference":"23-9-80000"}]}
<requestblock version="3.67"> <alias>[email protected]</alias> <request type="SCHEMEUPDATE"> <operation> <parenttransactionreference>23-9-80000</parenttransactionreference> <sitereference>test_site12345</sitereference> </operation> </request> </requestblock>
Replace <DOMAIN> with a supported domain. Click here for a full list.
Field specification
| Field | Format | Description | |
 |
parenttransactionreference XPath: /operation/parenttransactionreference |
Alphanumeric & hyphens (25) |
You will need to submit the transaction reference of the original AUTH transaction (the “parent” request, as described in the recurring payments document).
We will inherit the stored payment credentials from this transaction, and send these off to VAU or ABU to check if there have been any updates. |
|
requesttypedescriptions XPath: /@type |
Alpha (20) | You must submit “SCHEMEUPDATE”, as shown in the request example. |
|
sitereference XPath: /operation/sitereference |
Alphanumeric & underscore (50) |
The site reference relates to your individual account which you received on setup. If you do not know your site reference, please contact our Support Team. |
SCHEMEUPDATE response example
{
u 'requestreference': u 'A0bxh87wt',
u 'version': u '1.00',
u 'response': [{
u 'transactionstartedtimestamp': u '2018-11-28 11:18:01',
u 'parenttransactionreference': u '72-9-80001',
u 'credentialsonfile': u '1',
u 'livestatus': u '0',
u 'merchantcategorycode': u '0000',
u 'issuer': u 'Test Issuer',
u 'dccenabled': u '0',
u 'settleduedate': u '2018-11-28',
u 'errorcode': u '0',
u 'tid': u '27882788',
u 'merchantnumber': u '00000000',
u 'merchantcountryiso2a': u 'GB',
u 'transactionreference': u '72-9-80002',
u 'merchantname': u 'Test Merchant',
u 'paymenttypedescription': u 'VISA',
u 'baseamount': u '100',
u 'accounttypedescription': u 'ECOM',
u 'requesttypedescription': u 'SCHEMEUPDATE',
u 'currencyiso3a': u 'GBP',
u 'maskedpan': u '411111######1111',
u 'errormessage': u 'Ok',
u 'issuercountryiso2a': u 'US',
u 'settlestatus': u '0'
}]
}
array(3) {
["requestreference"] => string(9) "A3579dkvx"
["version"] => string(4) "1.00"
["response"] => array(1) {
[0] => array(23) {
["transactionstartedtimestamp"] => string(19) "2018-11-28 11:18:01"
["parenttransactionreference"] => string(10) "72-9-80001"
["credentialsonfile"] => string(1) "1"
["livestatus"] => string(1) "0"
["merchantcategorycode"] => string(4) "0000"
["issuer"] => string(16) "Test Issuer"
["dccenabled"] => string(1) "0"
["settleduedate"] => string(10) "2018-11-28"
["errorcode"] => string(1) "0"
["tid"] => string(8) "27882788"
["merchantnumber"] => string(8) "00000000"
["merchantcountryiso2a"] => string(2) "GB"
["transactionreference"] => string(10) "72-9-80002"
["merchantname"] => string(13) "Test Merchant"
["paymenttypedescription"] => string(4) "VISA"
["baseamount"] => string(3) "100"
["accounttypedescription"] => string(4) "ECOM"
["requesttypedescription"] => string(12) "SCHEMEUPDATE"
["currencyiso3a"] => string(3) "GBP"
["maskedpan"] => string(16) "411111######1111"
["errormessage"] => string(2) "Ok"
["issuercountryiso2a"] => string(2) "US"
["settlestatus"] => string(1) "0"
}
}
}
{"requestreference":"W23-fjgvn3d8","version":"1.00","response":[{"transactionstartedtimestamp":"2018-11-28 11:18:01","parenttransactionreference":"72-9-80001","credentialsonfile":"1","livestatus":"0","merchantcategorycode":"0000","issuer":"SecureTrading Test Issuer1","dccenabled":"0","settleduedate":"2018-11-28","errorcode":"0","tid":"27882788","merchantnumber":"00000000","merchantcountryiso2a":"GB","transactionreference":"72-9-80002","merchantname":"Test Merchant","paymenttypedescription":"VISA","baseamount":"100","accounttypedescription":"ECOM","requesttypedescription":"SCHEMEUPDATE","currencyiso3a":"GBP","maskedpan":"411111######1111","errormessage":"Ok","issuercountryiso2a":"US","settlestatus":"0"}],"secrand":"zO9"}
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<responseblock version="3.67">
<requestreference>X12345</requestreference>
<response type="SCHEMEUPDATE">
<merchant>
<merchantcategorycode>0000</merchantcategorycode>
<tid>00000000</tid>
<merchantnumber>00000000</merchantnumber>
<merchantcountryiso2a>GB</merchantcountryiso2a>
<merchantname>Merchant test site</merchantname>
</merchant>
<transactionreference>72-5-118</transactionreference>
<billing>
<amount currencycode="GBP">1234</amount>
<payment type="VISA">
<pan>411111######0211</pan>
<issuercountry>ZZ</issuercountry>
<issuer>Test Issuer</issuer>
</payment>
<dcc enabled="0"/>
</billing>
<timestamp>2019-09-19 12:26:06</timestamp>
<error>
<message>Ok</message>
<code>0</code>
</error>
<live>0</live>
<operation>
<parenttransactionreference>72-5-117</parenttransactionreference>
<accounttypedescription>ECOM</accounttypedescription>
<credentialsonfile>1</credentialsonfile>
</operation>
<settlement>
<settleduedate>2019-09-19</settleduedate>
<settlestatus>0</settlestatus>
</settlement>
</response>
<secrand>Yb3SR5Pq</secrand>
</responseblock>
If this is not the case, you will need to look at the errorcode and errormessage values in order to troubleshoot the problem.
2. Secure Trading contacts VAU or ABU
- Secure Trading will gather all payment credentials where scheme updates have been requested, and submit a batch of these details to VAU and ABU on a daily-basis.
- Once the payment credentials have been submitted to VAU and ABU, the settlestatus of each SCHEMEUPDATE is updated to “10”.
- After VAU and ABU have gathered the information needed regarding any changes to payment credentials, they will submit the results of their checks back to Secure Trading.
For this reason, we also recommend performing SCHEMEUPDATE requests three days before recurring payments need to be performed.
- Once we have received a response from VAU or ABU, the settlestatus of each SCHEMEUPDATE is updated to their final state:
- “100” if the checks completed successfully.
- “3” if the checks raised an issue.
3. Handling the response
- Once completed, you will receive a URL notification for each SCHEMEUPDATE request submitted. We will also email you daily reports that summarise the results of scheme updates performed. See below for greater detail.
- If the settlestatus of the SCHEMEUPDATE has been updated to “100”, this means the checks were performed successfully, and if the payment credentials were updated, our own records are updated to always use the latest information for all future scheduled payments.
- If the settlestatus has instead been updated to “3”, this indicates that the scheme update checks have raised an issue that needs to be addressed before processing further recurring payments with the customer. Your system should perform the following additional checks:
- If the settlestatus is “3” and the errorcode is showing as “70000”, this indicates that the card scheme has had a request from the customer to stop further recurring payments. You must desist from processing further recurring payments in the sequence. We recommend contacting the customer for clarification on the situation.
- If the settlestatus is “3” and the errorcode is not “70000”, this indicates a problem has occurred when performing the checks, requiring manual investigation. You will need to refer to our list of error codes to determine the cause of the error and handle the response appropriately.
- acquireradvicecode
- acquirerresponsecode
- acquirerresponsemessage
- schemeresponsecode
- Any future recurring payments that are processed from the original parent transaction included in the SCHEMEUPDATE request will automatically use the latest payment credentials.
- Once the scheme updates have been performed, we recommend performing the recurring payment within 6 days, to reduce the chance of the payment credentials being updated before the latest payments are processed.
Or in other words, if you are looking at a previously-processed recurring payment in MyST, you will always see the payment credentials used to facilitate that specific transaction, rather than the most up-to-date payment credentials retrieved by scheme updates.
About notifications
The results of scheme update checks are returned to your system via notifications:
Email report
You will receive an email from [email protected] for each day that Secure Trading receives results for scheme update checks from Visa Account Updater (VAU) and Mastercard’s Automatic Billing Updater (ABU) systems, including updated payment credentials (payment type, expiry date and masked card number). They are presented in the format of a table. You will receive a maximum of one email per day (if there are no updates, you will not receive an email).
“Stopped” subscription email report
You will receive an email from [email protected] for each day that Secure Trading receives any requests to stop active subscriptions, from Visa Account Updater (VAU) and Mastercard’s Automatic Billing Updater (ABU) systems. They are presented in the format of a table. You will receive a maximum of one email per day (if there are no updates, you will not receive an email).
URL notification
You will receive a URL notification for each scheme update request submitted. These will contain the updated payment credentials (payment type, expiry date and masked card number). If the payment credentials haven’t been updated, the existing payment credentials are returned. You will need to parse these notifications and send a response back to Secure Trading. Click here to learn more about URL notifications.
Further reading
