Account updater
DEFINITION
An account updater is a service that automatically refreshes a customer's stored card details, such as a new number or expiration date, when the card issuer reports a change, so a recurring payment does not fail because the card on file is outdated. It works with card networks directly to reduce involuntary churn.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
RELATED TERMS
An account updater is a service that automatically refreshes a customer's stored card details, such as a new number or expiration date, when the card issuer reports a change, so a recurring payment does not fail just because the card on file is outdated.
Expanded meaning
Cards get reissued constantly: a customer's bank sends a new expiration date, a card gets replaced after fraud, or a program migrates from one card number to another. None of that has anything to do with whether the customer wants to keep paying for their subscription, but without an account updater, the old card details stay on file until a charge fails and someone notices.
An account updater works with the card networks and issuing banks directly. Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and Discover each run their own card update programs, and the cardholder's issuing bank, not the subscription billing platform, decides whether a given card participates and sends the account-change event to the network. The billing platform's role is to receive those updates and refresh the stored payment details automatically.
Why it matters
Account updater is one of the most direct tools for reducing involuntary churn, the churn category caused by payment failures rather than a customer's decision to cancel. Every card in a subscription business's system will eventually expire or get reissued. Without an automatic way to catch that, each one becomes a failed charge, a dunning cycle, and a real risk of losing the customer, even though the customer never asked to leave.
It also reduces friction for the customer. Nobody wants to be prompted to re-enter their card number because the bank issued a new one behind the scenes. An account updater resolves that quietly, before it ever becomes the customer's problem.
How to use
To enable Recurly's Account Updater:
Log in and go to Configuration, then Payments Settings.
Find the Account Updater box near the top of the page and select Enable.
Enter the required credentials: a Mastercard Merchant Category Code (MCC) to enable Mastercard updates, and a 10-digit American Express SE number to enable Cardrefresher.
Note that gateway-provided (OptBlue) Amex SE numbers do not work for this purpose. Only a direct Amex SE number is supported.
Once enabled, updated card details flow in automatically as issuing banks report changes, without requiring the merchant or the customer to take manual action for each card.
Benefits and examples
An account updater gives a subscription business:
Fewer failed payments caused purely by outdated card details, rather than by a customer's intent to cancel.
Less manual dunning work, since many card-detail issues resolve before they ever generate a failed charge.
A better customer experience, since customers are not interrupted to re-enter payment details after routine card reissues.
For example, a customer's card expires between billing cycles. Their bank issues a new card with a new expiration date and, in some cases, a new number. With an account updater enabled, the billing system receives that change from the card network and updates the stored payment method automatically, so the next billing attempt uses the current card rather than failing against the expired one.
Recurly differentiators
Recurly's Account Updater integrates with card update programs from Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and Discover. Recurly also supports card updates in Europe in certain cases. Enabling it requires a Mastercard Merchant Category Code for Mastercard updates and a direct, 10-digit American Express SE number for Cardrefresher; gateway-provided OptBlue SE numbers are explicitly not supported for this purpose, which is a detail merchants using an Amex OptBlue setup need to plan around.
Account Updater sits alongside Recurly's dunning management as part of the toolset for addressing involuntary churn, so a merchant can both prevent stale card data from causing a failure and manage the retry and communication process when a payment does fail.
Frequently asked questions
What is an account updater in subscription billing? An account updater is a service that automatically refreshes stored card details, such as a new card number or expiration date, when the card network or issuing bank reports a change, reducing failed payments caused by outdated cards.
Does the merchant decide which cards get updated? No. The cardholder's issuing bank determines whether a given card participates in a card network's update program and sends the change to the network. The merchant's billing platform receives and applies that update.
Is an account updater the same as dunning? No. An account updater prevents some failed payments from happening in the first place by keeping card details current. Dunning is the process of retrying and communicating about a payment that has already failed. The two work together to reduce involuntary churn.
What credentials does Recurly's Account Updater require? Recurly requires a Mastercard Merchant Category Code (MCC) to enable Mastercard updates and a direct, 10-digit American Express SE number to enable Cardrefresher. Gateway-provided (OptBlue) Amex SE numbers are not supported for this feature.
