X9 Publishes Standard for Single-use Business Payment Cards (SUAs)

Will Benefit Payment Software Firms

ANNAPOLIS, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--#ISO_20022--Today the Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc. (X9) announced the publication of a new standard for single-use business-to-business payment cards, X9.149 -- Virtual Purchase Card Payment Automation. X9.149 aims to standardize the user side of transactions in order to reduce overhead, promote an increase in cash application rates and achieve greater efficiency in payment reconciliation, following ISO 20022 guidance. The new standard is of particular benefit to payment software companies, which can now develop products that will be interoperable and scalable.

X9.149 is now available for download from the ANSI website.

Virtual single-use purchase card accounts (SUAs) account for hundreds of billions of dollars in invoice payments annually, with the potential to increase even further in the near future. SUAs are one-time-use payment card credentials, created without physical plastic. They are used for micro-purchases, placing orders and making payments when the supplier agrees to accept this form of payment. The payment card credentials can be presented to the supplier in the form of an email, web posting or telephone conversation. Because the underlying financial information is not divulged, SUAs are a secure method of payment.

The current process of accepting SUA cards is labor intensive; every issuer has different SUA email payment formats and card credential access requirements. The process to retrieve the payment card data, process the payment and apply the payments to the appropriate outstanding invoice records can be very challenging for suppliers, including multiple opportunities to introduce errors. Until now, there was no U. S. standard that specifically applied to this area.

The new standard focuses on the email form. It also recommends following the invoice remittance reporting guidance provided in the ISO 20022 standard for identifying the buyer, supplier, remittance details and any buyer adjustments to them.

Virtual purchase card issuers that adopt the email format recommended in X9.149 will enable faster, more precise and more cost-effective acceptance of single-use card payments by suppliers, similar to the present situation with checks, wire transfers of funds and ACH.

"SUA acceptance has been a persistent pain point for merchants -- the lack of a uniform standard creates reconciliation headaches and time-consuming manual workarounds that add up fast," said Joey Dembek, COO of Optimized Payments, a payments analytics and consulting firm. "This standard directly addresses concerns we hear from merchants constantly, and it should make acceptance meaningfully simpler for suppliers of all sizes."

"Other payment instruments already have uniform standard formats that make efficient and accurate processing possible, and X9.149 will do the same for SUAs," said X9 Executive Director Steve Stevens. "Standardizing SUAs will benefit both buyers and suppliers, as cash application automation opportunities improve, payment exceptions are minimized and processing costs are reduced. We expect that X9.149's availability will increase SUA use."

About the Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc.

The Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc. is a non-profit organization accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to develop and maintain national and through ISO international standards for the financial services industry. The subjects of X9's standards include: retail, mobile and business payments; corporate treasury functions; blockchain technology; processing of electronic legal orders issued to financial institutions; tracking of financial transactions and instruments; financial transaction messaging (ISO 8583 and 20022); quantum computing; AI, QR code secure payments; checks; cloud; data breach notification and more. In addition, X9 is the governing body for a family of X9 Financial PKI products issued by DigiCert.

X9 acts as the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for ISO TC68 (Financial Services) and performs the secretariat functions for ISO TC68. Please visit our website (www.x9.org) for more information.

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For further information:

Judith Vanderkay
[email protected]
+1 (781) 883-3793

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