Stripe Interaction with Cards Network

In the previous lesson, we described the client's interaction with the Stripe gateway. In reality, the payment ecosystem also consists of other components, one of which is the cards network. The payment gateway validates the credit or debit card and user information by passing it to the cards networks. In this lesson, we will discuss passing payment card and cardholder information to the cards networks using their provided APIs. In return, the cards networks' APIs verify the data provided by Stripe from different entities, such as the issuer bank.

Payment card validation

Payment gateways, such as Stripe, provide the CVCCVC stands for card verification code, a 3 or 4-digit security code at the front or back of the payment card. , zip code, payment card number, and cardholder address and title to the cards network via their APIs. This data is compared to the information the card issuer has stored for the cardholder. Since the Visa API responds to Stripe regardless of whether the card is valid on invalid, the verification check is unsuccessful if the provided information doesn't exist with the card issuer.

Card network API for payment card validation

Popular cards networks, such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover, provide APIs that Stripe can use to interact with them. Since Visa is a larger player in the industry (in terms of the number of cards issued and overall transaction volume), we will use its example in this lesson, though conceptually, the details are similar for other card issuers.

For instance, suppose the card details provided to Stripe is a Visa card. In that case, the card information is delivered to Visa for verification using their API, as shown in the illustration below. In the following sections, we will explain how Stripe interacts with the Visa cards network API.