On-demand COF purchase

Overview

On-demand Credential-on-file (COF) purchase is a payment type which uses a single initial request to make one transfer of funds from customer to merchant by using previously stored payment credentials but without validation of the payment instrument (such as card validation code, or CVC).

The on-demand COF purchases are used for purchases that use the same payment instrument for repeatable purchases with variable amount and no specific schedule, for instance to pay for taxi services. On-demand COF purchases are convenient because they do not require the customer to enter payment credentials and to validate the payment instrument for each purchase.

The payment platform supports the following COF payment categories:

• One-click purchases. Series of debits within such purchases are initiated by the customer and are not based on a schedule or a payment amount. For example, the customer can pay the rent of one or several movies in a virtual cinema using previously saved card credentials.
• Autopurchases. Series of debits within such purchases are initiated by the merchant and are unscheduled or performed for different amounts. For example, when the customer's account balance falls below specific threshold, funds are withdrawn from the customer's bank account for a top up.

Gate can be used to register and process any COF purchases, while Payment Page allows registering any COF purchases and process onle-click purchases with the use of some payment methods.

Payment model

A COF purchase becomes available only after its registration, which means making an initial payment—a one-time purchase or a payment instrument verification—with the customer's payment data saved in the platform and COF purchase type specified. The set of parameters required for further processing of the COF purchase can differ depending on the payment method in use.

When using Gate, you initiate COF purchase by sending a recurring request or a sale request to the payment platform. Once the payment platform receives the request, it creates a recurring or a sale operation respectively. The created operation eventually results in debiting customer card or account without payment instrument validation.

When using Payment Page, to initiate a COF purchase, you specify the purchase operation mode and additional parameters required for performing COF purchases using a particular payment method in the parameters for opening the payment form. Once the payment form opens, the customer should select the payment instrument for which the COF purchases are registered and confirm payment processing. Authentication is not required. As soon as the customer confirms payment processing, request is sent to the payment platform. Once the payment platform receives the request, it creates the sale operation which results in debiting of customer's funds without the verification of the payment instrument.

In rare instances, a COF purchase may require you to send another request to submit additional information requested by one of the stakeholders, for example to provide cardholder address which is missing from the initial request. In such cases, when working via Gate, a callback with the names of parameters for clarifying information is sent from the platform to the web service and payment processing is suspended until a request with the required information is sent from the web service—clarification, while when working via Payment Page, all actions are carried out without the merchant's web service involved.

If the payment method supports refunds, after completing an on-demand COF purchase you can return your customers their money, if needed. You initiate a refund by sending a refund request to the payment platform or select the corresponding action on the payment information tab in the Dashboard interface. For a refund within a card payment, depending on the refund time and amount and the payment instrument used for the payment, one of the following operations is initiated:

• reversal if the refund is initiated within the operation day regardless of the purchase amount for a Mastercard card and provided that the total purchase amount is refunded for a card of any other card network;
• refund if the refund is initiated for a card of any card network after operation day and regardless of the amount and within the operation day provided that a partial purchase amount is refunded for a card of all card networks except Mastercard.

Figure: State diagram for on-demand COF purchase

The rest of this section describes any possible statuses of an on-demand COF purchase and the related operations. More information about processing COF purchases is provided in the Payment Page and Gate sections, while the information about processing purchases with the use of other payment instruments is provided in the Payment methods section.

Payment statuses

The following table describes the statuses of any on-demand COF purchase.

The recurring operation statuses

The following table describes the statuses of the sale operation.

Statuses of the reversal and refund operations

The reversal and refund operation statuses coincide with the statuses of the recurring operation.