Groups

Groups allow you to customize features based on the characteristics of a subset of cardholders, within individual or multiple card programs.

How do I use groups?

With our group management options, you can tailor your card program for different profiles of cardholder. For example, you can adjust how fees are calculated based on spending metrics or marketing requirements. You can also use Group functionality to manage Anti-Money Laundering (AML) or spending restrictions.

Groups are mainly used to:

calculate or apply fees.
create PayRule rules and actions.
manage spending limits.
calculate or apply cash rewards.

When working with multiple groups, especially if they are shared between card products, you need to be precise when assigning:

Group type
Risk level

Group type

Groups are usually assigned under the General container, for long-term card program management. It is important to classify the created group accurately, by carefully specifying the container type. This is especially useful for fraud assessment rules and fees, which are often shared between products, and clearly defined Group types make day-to-day program management easier.

The available group types are:

General container
Fees group
Authorization activities
Settlement activities
Scheduled tasks
Fraud assessment
Rules and their actions

Group risk level

The risk level assigned to a group determines the priority processing order when an account is linked to more than one group. For example, you can give Fraud assessment containers a higher priority than standard Fees group. Transactions for cardholders in group with a higher priority risk level are processed first, and the outcome can determine subsequent processing requirements as rules associated to a group can be configured to 'stop further processing'.

When 'stop further processing' is configured on a rule, no further rule processing occurs, regardless of which group they are associated with.

The available risk levels are:

Default
Low
Very Low
High
Very High
Custom

Example:

If Card A is linked to G1, G2 and G3, and FR2 is triggered during a transaction, then FR3, G1 and G2 will not begin processing.

Group	Group type	Risk level	Attributes (in priority order)
G1	General container	High	R1
			R2
			R3
G2	Fees group	Low	F1
			F2
			F3
G3	Fraud assessment	Very high	FR1
			FR2 (configured to stop further processing)
			FR3

Advanced group management

Effective group container classification and risk level management can allow advanced day-to-day card program management. The example below provides ideas on how to improve existing card programs and build for future card program expansion in an effective manner.

Linking account(s) to group(s) can be done across multiple card products or within the same card product. This opens up the opportunity to provide a dramatically different cardholder experience, tailored to the customer segment needs rather than simply belonging to a specific product. The goal of managing group containers is to:

Save costs by segmenting the experience within one card program
Drive revenue through targeted promotional or analytics activities
Actively manage fraud while not unnecessarily restricting spending on low-risk cardholders

Manage fraud

Link a card to a group with fraud detection rules

As a typical example, if we use fraud as a driver for active program management, when creating transaction rules to combat fraud, simply separate out the fraud rules between two containers:

Mandatory rules – compliance, hard fraud rules
High-risk spender rules – additional rules for risk management

This can assist with minimizing false negatives and false positives, leaving the cardholder more satisfied with the product, as they are protected and not limited.

Example:

G4 is the default group inherited by all cards during creation, during account origination it is determined by the client that the card (Card B) is high-risk, the client can link the card to G5.
Card B can remain linked to G4, as it has other necessary attributes.
When Card B attempts a transaction for 750, it will be declined.
It is determined in 6 months that Card B is no longer High-risk, and Card B is unlinked from G5.

Group	Group type	Customer segment	Spending limit
G4	General container	All cardholders	1000
G5	Fraud assessment	High-risk	500

Predict spend patterns

Use metrics to identify high-risk spend activity

Most cardholders ultimately spend in low-risk locations and have predictable spending patterns. For outlier metrics, adding additional safeguards based on specific metrics such as cardholders with a history of fraud or high-risk location travel spending behaviours, provides an overall higher-quality spending experience for the majority of the cardholder portfolio without punitive transaction monitoring rules.

Combine this strategy with, for instance, targeted promotional analytics rules or segmenting out different fee profiles within the same program, and issuers unlock very powerful cardholder journeys that can be adapted as and when required over time by adding or removing accounts on demand.

Group API endpoints

Link an account to a group: When used the account will inherit all attributes linked to the group.
View group information: Returns the groups(s) ID, description, name, type and risk level.
Unlink an account from a group: When used the account will disinherit all attributes linked to that group.
View linked account groups: Returns all groups the account is currently linked to.
List rules: When used and mode 2 is used with the specified group_id it will return the current rules applied to the specified group.