Integrating Visa's API Into Your Reward Program

With Visa's API, you can utilize the payment network's functionality as part of your reward program's applications — whether these are web apps or standalone apps. The API — or application programming interface — provides a secure connection between the Visa network and your software. Visa's card issuing API is a popular solution for businesses that want to issue their own branded cards.

You may develop this software yourself or opt for third-party software with open API capability. In both cases, you can use the API to process payments and help your customers achieve their desired outcomes.

In this blog, we will look at the Visa API in more detail. We'll examine how to work with Visa's API if you are a developer creating an application for your rewards program. We'll also be exploring how easy the solution is to integrate into your strategy and what the benefits are.

Why should you integrate Visa's API into your rewards program?

How important is working with Visa's API? What benefits does it provide your rewards program? There are several advantages when you are integrating this API:

Improved customer functionality

If your customers can utilize Visa's products and services from within your own rewards program applications. This is great news for customers, as they won't need to move over to other apps to make payments or use other Visa features. Instead, everything will be available in one place, greatly streamlining the experience of using your reward program.

Increased revenue for your business

When customers can make payments via the Visa API, they are more likely to make these payments. Adding extra steps into the conversion process just gives users more opportunities to churn. 

By integrating Visa's Mass Payouts API into your payment process, you can further streamline the payment process, reducing the chances of delayed or missed payments and ultimately improving customer satisfaction. This can help to foster stronger connections between your business and your customers, and lead to increased revenue and customer loyalty. With Visa's Mass Payouts API, businesses can quickly and securely send payments to multiple recipients, providing a fast, efficient, and reliable payment experience for both businesses and customers alike.

Easy management

The API will handle real-time data transfer for your business, automatically updating all relevant databases. This is very important as it enables your business to operate with confidence and ease. Without the need for manual data transfer tasks, the job of managing the rewards program becomes much easier.

It is easy to integrate Visa's API?

Before exploring how to work with Visa's API, we first need to think about how to integrate it. Visa has designed its API precisely for this purpose — for integration into third-party apps and digital structures, including those associated with rewards and loyalty programs. So, you can expect a straightforward integration process. The Visa account dashboard will even take you through the procedure with step-by-step guidance.

However, you will need some development skills and knowledge to succeed in your integration. Even with step-by-step guidance, it will be difficult for people without a development background to achieve success on their project. If you do not have this background, you may need to enlist the help of an expert.

How to work with Visa's API

How exactly do you work with the Visa API? Take a look at how to get started.

Register and set up your Visa account

Set up your account with Visa. You need a Visa Developer account to integrate Visa's API into your reward program. Input all the required registration information and create your access credentials, and then you can use your Visa account.

Within the account area, you will find a secure sandbox environment as well as a wealth of resources. These resources include test data and extracts of sample code that’ll help you learn more about the different types of API offered by Visa. The idea is to give developers the tools to plan their projects with Visa interoperability.

Request access to some specific resources 

Not all resources on the Visa project dashboard will be automatically available to all users. Instead, you may need to email the Visa support team with a specific request to gain access to some of the resources. The support team has a policy of responding to resource access requests within one or two working days, but they say that response times may be longer than this.

Once you have access to the needed resources, you can start planning how to implement the code within your development project.

Start working on your project

From the dashboard, you can start working on your project. You can add one or more Visa APIs to the reward program app or website, depending on your specific needs and objectives with the development. Visa does not restrict how many APIs you are permitted to add, but they mention some caveats. Here are a few points to bear in mind:

• Not all APIs can be deployed together — some won't work in conjunction with others
• Some APIs will not be made available to all users, and use cases
• Not all APIs are offered in all regions, and some may be geo-specific

Gain your authentication certificate 

In order to run the Visa API within your reward program, you will need authentication. Without this, the API will not be usable, and much of the planned functionality you had in mind for your app will not work. You will need either Two-Way SSL or an X-Pay Token authentication code, depending on which Visa APIs you will use.

You can get started from within the Visa Account Dashboard. Select Credentials from the sidebar as you develop your project. You can use the sample code found in the Visa Account dashboard to test the connectivity of the network. The sample code can be located in the Assets tab on the project dashboard.

Renew Two-Way SSL authentication 

Projects with APIs that use mutual authentication — i.e., Two-Way SSL — will be bound by the authentication method's validity period. After this period, the certificate will expire and need to be renewed.

To renew the certificate, you must request new credentials and create a new certificate signing request (CSR). For the CSR, you can contact a Visa developer so they can generate a default CSR, or you can create your own. 

Both the new and old credentials will exist on the dashboard until the original set has expired — after this, only the new, valid credentials will exist on the dashboard. Visa uses an X.509 Public Key Infrastructure to handle all digital certification regarding Visa products and services, including API certification.

Set up outbound configuration if necessary 

For some projects, it may be necessary to set up outbound configurations. This will be required for any project to accept payloads sent by Visa. This can be achieved via the Configurations tab in the project dashboard, located on the sidebar.

From here, you can add the website domain and address, ready to be checked and certified by Visa. You must check that the endpoint is signed by Visa's TCAs (Trusted Certifying Authorities). Next, you'll need to wait for approval, after which you can start testing the connection.

Ping tests are used to assess the configuration. If you wish to remove the configuration at any point, you can return to the Configurations tab in the project dashboard and manage or toggle the configuration on or off.

Launch your product with the API installed 

Launching your project is quite a complex procedure, and the completed app will need to be reviewed by Visa's team before this can be executed. The Visa Dashboard will provide straightforward and easy-to-follow instructions to help you prepare your project for submission. 

After the project is submitted, you may still be required to provide additional information and context to Visa's team before they deliver a set of commercial terms and the billing information for the project.

The project is ready to go live and can be elevated from the sandbox environment to the certification or production area. It is possible to continue working on your reward app from now on.

You can add further API configurations in the sandbox environment and then submit these again to the Visa team. The team will review the updated submission and may request additional information before they provide you with updated terms and conditions and an updated pricing agreement.

An easier way to integrate visa prepaid cards into your program

To discover more about integrating visa prepaid cards to your platform, reach out to our team, and let's chat. For even more insight into how Runa works, schedule a demo of our platform today.