Mobile wallet & user recognition
The purpose of this page is to provide a simplified overview of user recognition with payments made with mobile wallets. The intended audience is primarily ECR integrators and merchants.
A key component when handling payments from mobile wallets is the support of PAR, which this page also tries to explain.
It's imperative to understand that when it comes to mobile wallets - and recognition of payments made by these wallets at physical payment terminals - that there are many factors, limitations and uncertainties. It's a very complex area, despite PAR being a very simple principle.
DISCLAIMER: The information on this page is not a guarantee of mobile wallet support, only that a particular test performed by Storebox or a partner of Storebox was successful or not. By "a successful test" it is meant that a purchase made with the mobile wallet has resulted in a digital receipt in the Storebox app, i.e. that the payment method was recognized. The information is also a general description of various payment terms and principles, and may not be fully accurate or completely cover all aspects as the purpose of the page is to provide an overview.
Terminology
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| User recognition | A general term applied to the process of identifying an end-user based on his/her purchases made using payment cards. This process is used for e.g. user recognition for loyalty services (including Cardlink) and digital receipts to be delivered to the payment card owner. Recognition can only take place if the end-user has accepted the necessary terms and conditions and have added the payment card(s) him-/herself to Storebox (directly in our app, or via a merchant loyalty programme). |
| PAN | The Payment Account Number. E.g. 4571000000000001. This is sensitive data and must not be handled outside PCI DSS. |
| FPAN | Funding PAN - it's the sensitive card number printed on the physical payment card (the "plastic card"). |
| TPAN | (Tokenized PAN) is a virtual card with a hidden card number that is produced each time an FPAN is added to any mobile wallet device. Every device will get its own virtual card. Adding card twice to the same device will result in two different TPANs. |
| Mobile wallets | Also referred to as xPays (Apple Pay, Google Pay etc.). |
| Card Token |
A non-sensitive representation of a payment card. The token can be generated in multiple ways. This is sometimes referred to as Storebox token, cardRef, or similar |
| PAR |
Payment Account Reference is a non-sensitive reference that is the same across an FPAN and all derivative TPAN's for it. Each time an FPAN is added to a device, the mobile wallet provider (via end-users bank) will issue a new unique TPAN, that is different from the FPAN. Storebox has as of September 2022 integrations to obtain PAR from the following card schemes:
This means that when a FPAN is added to Storebox, Storebox will obtain the PAR value from the scheme (if supported). Illustration of the PAR, FPAN and TPAN hierarchy: 
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How Storebox matches payment card and mobile wallet payments
Storebox matches a payment card to a user by use of the non-sensitive card token. This token can be the PAR value, or it can be another value. If it's not PAR, the token is often a token that is defined by the PSP (Nets, Verifone etc.). The card token is referred to as the "cardRef" when Nets is PSP.
See Tokenization for a more in-depth explanation.
Card enrolment to Storebox (FPAN vs. TPAN)
When enrolling a payment card to Storebox, it can either be the FPAN (the "plastic card" via card input or terminal) or the TPAN (terminal only). There are pros and cons of enrolling each, but as a rule of thumb FPAN will ensure the broadest coverage as PAR can be resolved from FPAN.
| Pros | Cons | |
|---|---|---|
| FPAN ("plastic card") | Any payment made using this card, or any mobile wallet to which the card has been added, will be recognized (assuming PAR support) | None |
| TPAN ("virtual card") |
For setups where PAR isn't supported, TPAN enrolment via terminal enables user recognition for mobile wallets. Terminal signup up of Dankort in wallets via PSAM/Verifone is not possible. For setups where PAR is supported, this method enables user recognition for the PAR and thus any other mobile wallet that the card is added to as well as the plastic card itself. |
If PAR isn't supported, each payment device card will have to be enrolled separately. Example: If an end-user gets a new mobile phone after having previously registered, s/he will have to register the TPAN for the new devices virtual card as well, as payments made using the new device will not be recognized despite the fact that both wallets originate from the same FPAN. Terminal enrolment of virtual cards via TPAN does not support resolution of PAR. PAR can only be resolved for an FPAN. This means that the originating unknown card (FPAN) will not be recognized automatically. Even if PAR gets suppported by the merchant solution at a later date. |
A combination of FPAN and TPAN enrolment will ensure the highest recognition rate, but isn't the best user experience and is hard to communicate to end-users and isn't necessary in many situations.
PAR limitations
Unfortunately, PAR is not universally present, so PAR coverage is not 100% and varies from country to country.
Generally "plastic cards" do not contain PAR on chip, and are thus recognized using a card token, and mobile wallet payments are recognized using PAR.
Some card schemes may also not have 100% PAR coverage on issued cards.
See the two tables below for more details.
Furthermore, PAR isn't supported by all banks, so even if a card scheme issues PAR for a given mobile wallet platform (e.g. Apple Pay), the PAR value isn't added to the mobile wallet and thus payments made using the mobile will not be recognized (unless the TPAN is enrolled, which it in most cases isn't).
Prerequisites for successful mobile wallet recognition
- Issuing bank supports PAR for the payment card/device
- Storebox must have a PAR integration to the card scheme (we do for Visa, Mastercard etc.)
- Payment card is enrolled in the Storebox app
- The payment terminal can read PAR from the payment device (chip/NFC)
- The terminal and/or ECR is capable of sending the PAR value to Storebox
Test cards
Proper mobile wallet integration can be tested end-to-end in a test environment, but it requires that the test card has PAR. (Visa/Dankort ordered from NETS have PAR.)
Mobile wallet/xPay test results
✓ = test success
× = test fail
? = not tested
| Apple Pay | Google Pay | Garmin Pay | Fitbit Pay | Samsung Pay (SE Only) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visa | ✓ | × | ✓ | ✓ | ? |
| Mastercard | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ? |
| Dankort | ✓ | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| AmEx | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
notes: Dankort+Apple Pay PAR successfully tested on Viking terminals.
Test details
| Device | Issuing Bank | Merchant | |
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| Visa/Apple Pay |
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| Visa/Google Pay |
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| Visa/Garmin Pay |
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| Visa/Fitbit Pay |
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| Mastercard/Apple Pay |
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| Mastercard/Google Pay |
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| Mastercard/Garmin Pay |
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| Mastercard/Fitbit Pay |
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| Dankort/Apple Pay |
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Physical payment card: PAR availability on chip
| Available | Since | |
|---|---|---|
| Dankort | ✓ | January 2020 |
| Visa/Dankort | ✓ (only Dankort PA) | January 2020 |
| Visa | × | |
| Mastercard | × | |
| AmEx | × |