Introducing Verification Services
Cybersource Verification Services are part of a suite of services that include electronic payment and fraud management. Verification Services consist of two services:
nDelivery Address Verification
nExport Compliance
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You are responsible for creating your order acceptance strategy. If you do not have the expertise, you are also responsible for seeking expert help outside of your company. Cybersource cannot make recommendations for your business. |
Delivery Address Verification verifies a customer’s delivery address during card-not-present transactions, and then it returns a result. The result contains an API-specific reply code and a status or error code that is specific to the results of address verification. Verification tests produce a valid address and an estimate of the risk associated with the address. As a result, your shipping and customer service costs caused by address errors can be reduced.
The verification process consists of validation and standardization of submitted addresses. After a customer provides address information to your system, you send the address in a request to Cybersource for verification.
When Cybersource Verification Services receives the address information in your request, the address is validated and standardized as described in the following sections.
During validation, address information is corrected. For example, the following items are verified:
nThe street number must be valid for the street.
nThe street name must be valid for the city.
nThe postal code must be valid for the city.
If the postal code in the submitted address is valid, it is used to determine the city and state or province.
Example 1Customer-Submitted Address Information
A customer submits the following address information to your system while placing an order:
44 Fisher Street
Mtn View, Florida
94043
The address information submitted by the customer contains several errors that can be corrected by Verification Services as described in the following table:
During standardization, address information is arranged in a consistent, preferred format by using common abbreviations. For example:
nDEPT is used for department
nSt for Street
nSW for Southwest
After the address information submitted by the customer in Example 1 is validated, the address is standardized as follows:
Countries Supported by Delivery Address Verification
Delivery Address Verification uses data from postal service databases, updated monthly from over 200 countries and territories. See Country or Region and Territory Postal System Categories.
Cybersource returns information codes for each address when address verification is attempted. These codes can include an API-specific reply code and a status or error code that describe the degree of match or reasons for the failure to match. When you have integrated Verification Services into your business, your system interprets the reply codes according to your business rules. Address verification failure rates depend on the address location and the category of the country, region, or territory as listed in Country or Region and Territory Postal System Categories. An address that requires correction is not considered a failure.
Address verification returns one of these results:
nAddress requires no correction. You receive the appropriate success information code.
nAddress requires correction. You receive an API-specific reply code and a status code that describe the type of correction that is applied.
nAddress cannot be verified. You receive an API-specific failure code and an error code that describe the type of failure.
For more information about API-specific reply flags, see Reply Flags. For more information about address verification status and error codes, see Status and Error Codes.
Export Compliance enables you to comply with U.S. Export Administration Regulations, as well as internationally supported sanctions lists, which place restrictions on those with whom you can conduct business. The service verifies customer information and returns detailed information about declined orders.
Export Compliance checks customer information by comparing it to many lists that are maintained by government agencies to support export controls. If a customer’s first name and last name or company name appears on any of the lists, you receive information indicating that the transaction is declined. You also receive a description of how the names match a list entry. For more information, see Restricted and Denied Parties List.
You can use Export Compliance to manage your international sales territories by listing the allowed and disallowed export countries in each offer. A first name and last name or company name can be matched more than once to a list when different spellings or aliases exist. Although only some of these matches appear in the Business Center, all matches appear in the API reply.
If you use Decision Manager, you can create custom rules based on information codes, name matches, and export programs. In addition, you can create profile selector rules based on a name and address match. For more information, see the Decision Manager User Guide (PDF | HTML).