Overview
AVS - Address Verification Service - is an additional security precautionary tool.
Cards issued within the UK support AVS / CVV checks. Conducted by the issuing bank, AVS checks that information provided by the cardholder matches the registered address and zipcode on their banking records. It is considered an added security measure and can prevent fraudulent activity on your account.
AVS performs two checks on the customers address:
- It assesses whether the numerical values provided in the
billing_streetparameter matches with the numerical values of the cardholder’s street address as recorded on the issuing bank's system. - It verifies that the numerical values provided in the
billing_zipcodeparameters match the numeric values of the cardholders zip code, as recorded on the issuing bank's system.
After the issuer completes the check, Acquired.com receives Matched, Not Matched, Not Checked or Not Provided within the response.
You can reject a successfully processed transaction if the AVS results return a 'Not Matched' response. To do this, please handle any avsaddress / avszipcode 'Not Matched' response and process a VOID request.
There are four possible responses relating to the AVS check that will be returned within the avsaddress and avszipcode response parameters.
AVS Testing
We have built out the AVS checking and testing functionality within our QA environment.Take a look at the below table on how to test AVS yourself.
| Request | Response | Description |
|---|---|---|
"billing_street":"152 Aldgate Drive" |
"avsaddress":"M" |
Matched |
"billing_zipcode":"E1 7RT" |
"avszipcode":"M" |
Matched |
"billing_street":"72 Aldgate Drive" |
"avsaddress":"N" |
Not Matched |
"billing_zipcode":"EW1 9HG" |
"avszipcode":"N" |
Not Matched |
"billing_street":"46 Aldgate Drive" |
"avsaddress":"NC" |
Not Checked |
"billing_zipcode":"E8 4GT" |
"avszipcode":"NC" |
Not Checked |
"billing_street":"" |
"avsaddress":"NP" |
Not Provided |
"billing_zipcode":"" |
"avsaddress":"NP" |
Not Provided |
It is possible to test each response parameter individually in order to cater for every scenario when processing live customer data.
Please be aware, there is validation requried on the zipcode fields you pass through within the request message.
Please see below table showing acceptable zipcode format(s).
T represents Text (A-Z or a-z) and N represents a number (0-9).
| Country | Validation |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom (GB) | Needs to be between 6 and 8 characters long, including spaces.
The zipcode field can be one of the following formats: TN NTT TNT NTT TNN NTT TTN NTT TTNN NTT TTNT NTT |