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`Secure Acceptance` `Checkout API` Overview

Cybersource Secure Acceptance Checkout API provides a seamless customer checkout experience that keeps your branding consistent. You can create a Secure Acceptance Checkout API profile and configure the required settings to set up your customer checkout experience.

Secure Acceptance Checkout API can significantly simplify your Payment Card Industry Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance by sending sensitive payment card data directly from your customer’s browser to Cybersource servers. Your web application infrastructure does not come into contact with the sensitive payment data and the transition is silent.

Secure Acceptance is designed to process transaction requests directly from the customer browser so that sensitive payment data does not pass through your servers.

If you do intend to send payment data from your servers, use the REST API, SOAP Toolkit API, or the Simple Order API.

Sending server-side payments using Secure Acceptance incurs unnecessary overhead and could result in the suspension of your

Secure Acceptance profile

and subsequent failure of transactions.

To create your customer's Secure Acceptance experience, you take these steps:

Create and configure Secure Acceptance Checkout API profiles.

Update the code on your web site to POST payment data directly to Cybersource from your secure payment form. See Sample Transaction Process Using JSP. Cybersource processes the transaction on your behalf by sending an approval request to your payment processor in real time. See Secure Acceptance Checkout API Transaction Flow.

Use the response information to generate an appropriate transaction response page to display to the customer. You can view and manage all orders in the Business Center. You can configure the payment options, response pages, and customer notifications. See Creating a Secure Acceptance Profile.

Required Browsers

You must use one of these browsers in order to ensure that the Secure Acceptance checkout flow is fast and secure.

Internet Explorer is no longer supported.

Desktop browsers:

Chrome 80, released February 4, 2020 or later

Edge 109, released January 12, 2023 or later

Firefox 115, released June 29, 2023 or later

Opera 106, released December 19, 2023 or later

Safari 13, released September 20, 2019 or later

Mobile browsers:

Android Browser 123, released March 12, 2024 or later

Chrome Mobile 80, released February 4, 2020 or later

iOS Safari 13, released September 20, 2019 or later

`Secure Acceptance` Profile

A Secure Acceptance profile consists of settings that you configure to create a customer checkout experience. You can create and edit multiple profiles, each offering a custom checkout experience. For example, you might want to offer different payment options for different geographic locations.

`Secure Acceptance` `Checkout API` Transaction Flow

Display the checkout page on your customer's browser with a form to collect their payment information and include a signature to validate their order information (signed data fields).

Your system should sign all request fields with the exception of fields that contain data the customer is entering. To prevent malicious actors from impersonating Cybersource, do not allow unauthorized access to the signing function.

The customer enters and submits their payment details (the unsigned data fields). The transaction request message, the signature, and the signed and unsigned data fields are sent directly from your customer's browser to the Cybersource servers. The unsigned data fields do not pass through your network.

Cybersource reviews and validates the transaction request data to confirm it has not been amended or tampered with and that it contains valid authentication credentials. Cybersource processes the transaction and creates and signs the response message. The response message is sent to the customer's browser as an automated HTTPS form POST.

If the response signature in the response field does not match the signature calculated based on the response data, treat the POST as malicious and disregard it.

Secure Acceptance signs every response field. Ignore any response fields in the POST that are not in the

signed_fields

field.

The response HTTPS POST data contains the transaction result in addition to the masked payment data that was collected outside of your domain. Validate the response signature to confirm that the response data has not been amended or tampered with.

If the transaction type is

sale

, it is immediately submitted for settlement. If the transaction type is

authorization

, use the Simple Order API to submit a capture request when goods are shipped.

Cybersource recommends that you implement the merchant POST URL notification as a backup means of determining the transaction result. This method does not rely on your customer's browser. You receive the transaction result even if your customer lost connection after confirming the payment. See Merchant Notifications.

Payment Tokens

Contact Cybersource Customer Support to activate your merchant account for

the

Token Management Service (TMS). You cannot use payment tokens until your account is activated and you have enabled payment tokens for Secure Acceptance. See Creating a Secure Acceptance Profile.

Payment tokens are unique identifiers that replace sensitive payment information and that cannot be mathematically reversed. Cybersource securely stores all the card information, replacing it with the payment token. The token is also known as a subscription ID, which you store on your server.

The payment tokenization solution is compatible with the Visa and Mastercard Account Updater service. Card data stored with Cybersource is automatically updated by participating banks, thereby reducing payment failures. See the

Account Updater User Guide

(PDF | HTML).

The payment token replaces the card

or ACH bank account

number, and optionally the associated billing, shipping, and card information. No sensitive card information is stored on your servers, thereby reducing your PCI DSS obligations.

Tokens That Represent a Card or Bank Account Only

Instrument identifier tokens

created using the Token Management Service (TMS) and third-party tokens

represent a payment card number or bank account number. The same card number or bank account number sent in multiple token creation calls results in the same payment token being returned.

TMS instrument identifier and third-party tokens cannot be updated. If your merchant account is configured for one of these token types, you receive an error if you attempt to update a token.

When using Secure Acceptance with tokens that represent only the card number or bank account, you must include associated data, such as expiration dates and billing address data, in your transaction request.

Subscription Payments

A customer subscription contains information that you store in the Cybersource database and use for future billing. At any time, you can send a request to bill the customer for an amount you specify, and Cybersource uses the payment token to retrieve the card, billing, and shipping information to process the transaction. You can also view the customer subscription in the Business Center. See Viewing Transactions in the Business Center.

A customer subscription includes:

Customer contact information, such as billing and shipping information.

Customer payment information, such as card type, masked account number, and expiration date.

Customer order information, such as the transaction reference number and merchant-defined data fields.

Subscription Types
Type of Subscription	Description
Recurring	A recurring billing service with no specific end date. You must specify the amount and frequency of each payment and the start date for processing the payments. `Cybersource` creates a schedule based on this information and automatically bills the customer according to the schedule. For example, you can offer an online service that the customer subscribes to and can charge a monthly fee for this service. See Recurring Payments.
Installment	A recurring billing service with a fixed number of scheduled payments. You must specify the number of payments, the amount and frequency of each payment, and the start date for processing the payments. `Cybersource` creates a schedule based on this information and automatically bills the customer according to the schedule. For example, you can offer a product for 75.00 and let the customer pay in three installments of 25.00. See Installment Payments.

Level II
and III
Data

Secure Acceptance supports Level II

and III

data. Level II cards, also known as Type II cards, provide customers with additional information on their payment card statements. Business and corporate cards along with purchase and procurement cards are considered Level II cards.

Level III data can be provided for purchase cards, which are payment cards used by employees to make purchases for their company. You provide additional detailed information—the Level III data—about the purchase card order during the settlement process. The Level III data is forwarded to the company that made the purchase, and it enables the company to manage its purchasing activities.

For detailed descriptions of each Level II and Level III field, see

Level II and Level III Processing Using Secure Acceptance

(PDF | HTML). This guide also describes how to request sale and capture transactions.

Payouts Payment Tokens

Use Secure Acceptance to create a payment token that can be used with the Payouts API or batch submissions.

Creating a Payment Token for Payouts

Create a Secure Acceptance Profile and define your checkout page. See Payment Configuration or Portfolio Management for Resellers.

For transaction processing, create a payment token. See Payment Tokens.

Set the Payouts subscription ID field to the value of the payment token.

RESULT

See Payouts on the Developer Center.

Go-Live with `Secure Acceptance`

Cybersource recommends that you submit all banking information and required integration services before going live. Doing so will speed up your merchant account configuration.

When you are ready to implement Secure Acceptance in your live environment, you must contact Cybersource Customer Support and request Go-Live. When all the banking information has been received by Cybersource, the Go-Live procedure can require three days to complete. Go-Live implementations do not occur on Fridays.

Secure Acceptance Checkout API Overview