Common practises

This area describes some good common practice when providing payment services using Mastercard and VISA. Both card schemes (i.e. providers of payment methods) are restrictive and require dilligence in communicating to end-users. Both Mastercard and VISA want to ensure that consumers and end-users are I) protected, II) secure and above all III) informed in the use of payment cards.

Common practice rules apply

Providing card payments online require a set of common practice rules as follows. You can use these without caution or contact Upodi to get a detailed discussion on the best practices that follow.

1. Your payment page, shopping cart and/or check-out flow must inform the end-user in which payment methods are available like VISA, Mastercard, Diners, Maestro, Dankort etc. You may download critical assets as below to help communicate and inform end-users of which payment providers are available.
2. You must provide the legal information of the merchant whom is providing the services to the end-users. The legal information must equal to the information registered in the company registry of the country of merchant.
3. You must provide clear communication channels and options of support and/or direct contact using phone and/or e-mail.
4. You must provide terms of service, terms of purchase and/or terms of trade. These terms must clearly provide the rules and evidence guiding the end-user of the commercial terms.
   4.1) If you provide a subscription service, you must provide good and common understanding of subscription term, cancellation terms, renewal terms and billing processing.
   4.2.) If you provide one-off purchases of digital and/or non-digital goods, you must provide a clear description how the service(s) are provided to the customer. Common rules apply NOT to charge the payment before the actual shipment fo a physical good like a box is trackable.
   4.3.) If you save and store credit cards, the user must consent to this by clearly providing a statement that customer-not-present payments are doable.

Providing services for consumers (non-business users) in EU

The payment service directive v.2 (PSD2) prohibits merchants (you) from charging fees for providing the use of credit card payments. Surcharging in any form, whether direct, indirect, communicated and non-communicated as part of the transaction is strictly forbidden. For non-business consumers, the service of using digital payments like VISA or Mastercard must be completely free.

Providing free trials

For digital services free trials is a strong approach to grow and capture new clients. As end-users come to the end of a trial, you must provide the end-user with a consent of converting the trial to a purchased service. Automatically converting trial users to paid users is strictly prohibited when providing VISA and/or Mastercard payment(s).