Recurring Billing I Blog

Storing consumer credit cards with products such as Worldline’s payment profiles ensures payment data is secure.

In the world of online payments, security and flexibility are essential for both businesses and consumers. Storing consumer credit cards with products such as Worldline’s payment profiles ensures payment data is secure.

Payment profiles remove the need to enter card information each time you need to charge a consumer and offer the freedom to process both one-off and recurring payments. These recurring payments, known as recurring billing at Worldline, can be activated through our payment profiles.


Leverage Stored Data for Recurring Payments

Secure Payment Profiles

Secure Payment Profiles allow you to store consumer card data on Worldline’s PCI Level 1 certified secure server. You can then initiate transactions with that information at any time, or on a recurring basis at pre-scheduled intervals (what we refer to as recurring billing).

Recurring Billing

Recurring Billing is a simple way of processing secure payments automatically, using the information stored in a payment profile. From businesses offering subscription-based services to charities accepting repeat donations—organizations can rely on recurring billing as a low-maintenance way to reliably generate funds in the background.


Take Advantage of a Growing Market

The subscription e-commerce market is currently hovering around $13.5 billion but is expected to reach $478.21 billion by 2025 (that’s about a 68% growth rate!). To take advantage of this soaring market businesses can get authorization from customers to securely store payment details for recurring payments.

Storing payment details makes it convenient to process secure payments automatically. Take, for example, a meal-kit delivery company — they’ll need to create a weekly billing schedule for the box of ingredients they drop off at a consumer’s home each week. As a subscription service, consumers get a delivery once a week and agree to be charged five days before receiving the box at their doorstep.

Businesses can gather credentials to create a profile for each consumer and then set a billing schedule for them (weekly, monthly, etc.). The funds will be automatically charged to the consumers’ credit card at each recurring billing cycle.


The Power to Choose

For businesses that need more versatility for how they charge consumers, Worldline’s Secure Payment Profile service can be used for both one-off payments and recurring payments. If their products and services change, they won’t have to repeatedly ask the same consumer for card information each time they need to process a transaction.

Using the meal-kit delivery example, a company may also use the profile to process gift cards that subscribers can give to friends and family. Worldline’s payment profiles would provide this option because they allow one-off payments outside of any recurring billing cycles that are set for a consumer.

For businesses that have different products and services, Secure Payment Profiles are the way to go. You can do it all!

If you use Worldline or are curious about Secure Payment Profiles and Recurring Billing, check out our developer documentation.