Role of the Payment Account Reference (PAR) Within the Payments Lifecycle

Publication Date: December 2024

Executive Summary

The Payment Account Reference (PAR) number was developed by EMVCo in January, 2016. PAR is a 29-alphanumeric-character field that is composed of a four-character Bank Identification Number (BIN) Controller Identifier (which is assigned by EMVCo) followed by a 25-character unique value. PAR is used to tie individual tokens (e.g., that are created and used with digital wallets and for online purchases) and reissued card numbers to one payment account number (PAN). When using PAR, payment ecosystem participants can tie all transactions (including tokenized transactions and reissued card numbers) to one account.

Each payment ecosystem participant plays a role in implementing PAR. PAR is issued by the payment networks and used during the transaction authorization request and response processes. Acquirers obtain PAR from authorization response messages and pass PAR to the merchant. Merchants who use PAR capture and store PAR for their customers. Issuers store and manage PAR and are responsible for managing the lifecycle and PAR lineage.

PAR cannot be used to initiate financial transactions. Use cases for PAR include scenarios where one or more tokens and physical cards may be used in transactions. Example use cases include:

• Facilitating returns when a purchase is made with a token and the return is made with the physical card or different token.
• Identifying when a customer is taking advantage of a promotional offer.
• Identifying loyalty program customers and applying loyalty points to a customer’s account.
• Identifying fraudulent activity by customers or by merchants.
• Connecting transit authorization requests.
• Providing a complete picture of cardholder activities for use by analytics.

Each payment network has established specifications defining how PAR is supported on its network and how merchants, processors, and issuers can use PAR for different types of transactions (e.g., card present, card not present, token/non-token, recurring, card on file, and installment).

Additionally, as PAR is generally treated as personal data of the cardholder within the payments industry, the use of PAR may require cardholder consents or opt-in for relevant payment stakeholders.

While PAR has limited adoption today, broad industry implementation of PAR can provide potentially significant benefits to all payment ecosystem members. Several trends are making it increasingly important for merchants and other payments industry stakeholders to be able to use PAR to identify all card and token numbers that are associated with the primary account: greater adoption of mobile wallets; an increasing number of card transactions moving from card present to card not present; and increased tokenization adoption. PAR is an industry solution that can help solve the challenges of having a primary account with multiple card numbers and/or tokens and that can maintain a link among them.

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