Virtual cards will save costs, and reduce the need for plastic, and end users have more and more demand for virtual and tokenised card products. Still, at the same time, there is a place for physical card products which can lead to a situation where the preferences vary and it can be hard to meet the expectations of the customer.

As a solution to this, Digital card makes card form management easier as well as it will improve the end-user experience with the possibility to seamlessly take into use different card forms.

With the Digital card approach, the issuer can just flip a value if they wish to have the physical representation of the card or not. This can be done either in the onboarding of the customer or at any point of the card lifecycle. There is no work needed with the card personalisation bureau as Enfuce will handle if the card needs to be included in the card personalisation file or not – the issuer just needs to work with the value indicating the need for the physical plastic.

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Key benefits of being able to manage different card types easily - for issuers

  • Flexibility – The issuer doesn’t have to decide on behalf of the customer if virtual is sufficient or if there is a need to print physical for everyone, just in case
  • Process efficiency: reducing the complexity of managing different card types:
    • There will be fewer multiple PANs# per cardholder as virtual and physical are not represented as two cards
    • The issuer doesn’t need to manage multiple PAN’s per cardholder
  • Reduce costs: from physical cards, as you only print when cardholders request a physical card

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Key benefits of being able to manage different card types easily - for customers

  • Flexibility: By giving the customer more control they can decide when or if they want to have the physical card – the don’t need to decide at onboarding.
  • Seamless customer experience: by simplifying the administration of the card lifecycle the customer benefits from a streamlined process
    • No two PAN#s after upgrading to physical, normally this would create two transaction streams in the app, etc., which creates a poor customer experience.
    • PAN does not change when upgrading to a physical
    • No need to update the PAN# to different recurring transactions (e.g. Wolt or Netflix) as PAN# will remain the same.

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Use case examples for managing different card types easily

  • As an issuer or customer, I can decide whether I want the physical representation of the card during onboarding so when the card is created
  • As an issuer or customer, I can decide to order the physical representation of the card later on during my card lifecycle
  • As an issuer or customer, I can decide to cancel the physical representation of the card so that in the next annual renewal I don’t get a physical card
  • As an issuer or customer, I can see if I have the physical representation of the card

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Card lifecycle management

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Creating a card

Cards are created via API by using one of the following card endpoints:

When creating a card, the issuer can use the field in the embossing entity called physical to indicate if there is a need for physical plastic or not. Depending on the value, there will be a physical plastic or won’t be:

  • true indicates that there is a need for physical plastic. This is also the default value so if none of the values is selected, we will place true as default
  • false indicating that there isn’t a need for a physical plastic

When setting the value to true, the card will be placed in the embossing file in the next night’s embossing run and the card will be sent for manufacturing.

When setting the value to false, the card won’t be sent for manufacturing. The card will still go through the embossing run so even if the card is used digitally, there is still a PIN calculated by the Enfuce system.

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Updating a card

Enfuce supports issuers to change this value at any point in the card lifecycle. If it has been decided during card onboarding that there isn’t the need to have a physical plastic, but then, later on, there would be, this value can be updated via Update Card API. Also, it works other the way around, so if the next physical plastic should be disabled to be sent to the customer, then the value can be set to false.

Use case: No physical plastic was created during the card onboarding but then the customer changed their mind and wanted to have a physical plastic:

  • Issuer to update the physical value to true via API
  • Enfuce system will then automatically reissue the card with a physical event when the value is set to true
  • Enfuce includes the card to the embossing house and the card will be sent for manufacturing

Use case: Physical plastic has been created during the card onboarding but then the customer changes their mind and doesn’t want to have physical plastic in the future:

  • Issuer to update the physical value to false via API
  • Enfuce system will then automatically reissue the card when the value is set to false
  • Enfuce will not include the card to embossing run for example in the next annual renewal

When the value is updated from false to true, Enfuce will reissue the card, which will then be added to the card personalisation file. Reissuing the card means that only the physical plastic is replaced; the card number and other details will remain unchanged. The reissued plastic will generate a card production event (RPLRE), which will be added to the card personalisation file. It is important to ensure that the card personalisation bureau can process this production event.

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Updating cards with physical value and having instant issuing in use

Instant issuing means that plastic can be tokenised immediately after card creation, for example to digital wallets such as Google Pay or Apple Pay. During the card creation and with instant issuing there will be always two plastics created with sequence number 1 and sequence number 2. The first plastic has the virtual event which enables the card to be tokenised immediately and the second one will be the event called RALLRE, this is the one that calculates the PIN and indicates that card will go to the embossing process if the physical value is true.

Something to note when updating the physical value and if there is a need to view the historical data, is to look for sequence nr 2 onwards. Sequence 1 with instant issuing changes with the newest physical value, but sequence number 2 shows the correct historical value. Example to make this more clear:

Physical value is set to false during the card onboarding:

  • Plastic (production event New card virtual – NVRT) with sequence number 1 will have false
  • Plastic (production event Replace all – RALLRE) with sequence number 2 will have false

Then the issuer will update the value with true:

  • Plastic (production event New card virtual – NVRT) with sequence number 1 will have true (so this changes with the newest value)
  • Plastic (production event Replace all – RALLRE) new card with sequence number 2 will have false
  • Plastic (production event reissue – RPLRE) with sequence number 3 will have true

→ So when viewing the historical data of the value via API, the value should be looked at from sequence number 2 onwards.

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Replacing and reissuing a card

Both reissuing and replacing work normally so when the value is set either to false or true, it will follow when the card is reissued or replaced. It is just good to consider that if the value is false, the card will be reissued or replaced but not sent to card manufacturing. If the value is true, the card will be sent to the card personalisation bureau after reissuing or replacement.

Read more about the card reissuing and replacement here.

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To view the set value - Get Card

When there is a need to see if there is a physical representation of the card or not, that can be viewed with Get Card API.

Something to be considered is that when getting the value of the physical value, it is good to get the plastic status via Get a list of plastics for a given card API to understand if the card is being sent to the card manufacturer.

  • If the physical value is true and the plastic status is inactive, it means that the card has not yet gone to the embossing process / not been sent to the embossing house for card manufacturing. This applies only to the latest plastic.
  • If the physical value is true and the plastic status is active, it means that the card has been sent to the embossing house for card manufacturing.

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To view the set value - Enfuce data export files

When a card has been created or updated with physical value true or false, the value will be included in the Card Properties file.

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Set PIN

The service description for Set PIN can be found here.

The onboarding journey when having a Set PIN in use is described with the different use cases below.

Onboarding when there isn’t a need for the physical representation of the card and then the customer changes their mind

  1. Issuer orders card with pinStatus to D and physical = false
  2. A new card is created
  3. A physical card is created but not sent to perso, i.e. a PIN exists
  4. Customers change their mind and want a physical card
  5. issuer sets pinStatus to W and flips physical = true
  6. Enfuce system will also reissue the card automatically when the physical is set to true
  7. Wait for the customer to set the PIN
  8. When PIN is set, Enfuce includes the card in the embossing process

Onboarding when there is a need for the physical representation of the card and then the customer changes their mind

  1. Issuer orders card with the pinStatus to W and physical = true
  2. A new card is created
  3. Wait for the customer to set the PIN
  4. When PIN is set, Enfuce includes the card in the embossing process
  5. Customer have changed their mind and don’t want to have physical plastic in the future
  6. Issuer sets value physical = false
  7. Enfuce system will also reissue the plastic as virtual immediately after the physical is set to false.
  8. The card is not included in the embossing process anymore as long as the physical is false
Disposable card – time-based closingCustomer