Electronic meal voucher card operation
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Titre-Restaurant cards work as prepaid cards.
They provide access to an account where the employer regularly recharges the electronic meal vouchers of their employees, who will then be able to pay for their meals at all restaurants and affiliated establishments.
The minimum amount that can be paid using meal vouchers per transaction is set at EUR 1.50 on the payment gateway.
The maximum amount is set at EUR 25 per day, that can be paid in one or more installments.
The issuer is responsible for processing immediate debits of account holders' accounts (authorization or refusal) and is solely responsible for refunding merchants.
Titre-Restaurant cards cannot be used on Sundays and on holidays (unless the employer has given a special authorization to his/her employees who work on these days).
This verification is performed by issuers. Therefore, it is not necessary to perform additional verification on the merchant website.
The amount payable by meal vouchers is temporarily blocked until the transaction is finalized or abandoned.
In case the transaction is abandoned, canceled or if the payment session expires, the payment gateway performs a reversal.
This action allows to update the outstanding amount of the holder's card and to display the daily available balance to the buyer.
If the recovery operation fails, after the authorization expires the issuer will automatically adjust the balance of the meal voucher.
- First generation cards (1G)
First generation cards, even if they have the logo of the restaurant voucher issuer, have the distinction of being payment cards issued within the VISA or MASTERCARD schemes.
The acceptance of these cards via the payment gateway requires a Visa or Mastercard e-commerce card acceptance contract (CB for example) associated with the shop.
These cards are compatible with split payment and allow to pay for a purchase using several cards (1 electronic meal voucher + 1 payment card) via the card acceptance contract if the issuer supports partial authorization.
- Second generation cards (2G)
CONECS, who is the EIG of 4 meal voucher issuers: Bimpli (ex Apetiz), Sodexo, UP and Edenred, has created a technical platform for routing and collecting electronic meal voucher payments via payment terminals and on the Internet.
The cards issued under the CONECS brand are:
- Bimpli (ex Apetiz) via Natixis Intertitres
- Pass Restaurant via Sodexo
- Chèque Déjeuner via Groupe Up
- Edenred meal voucher
These cards work as three-party scheme cards (the issuer and the acquirer are combined).
The acceptance of these cards via the payment gateway requires a CONECS acceptance contract associated with the shop.
The acceptance via the CONECS scheme depends on the affiliation contract that the merchant signed with each issuer and the flow of meal vouchers opened by the issuer via the e-commerce channel.
The payment gateway only directs toward CONECS the cards recognized by your CONECS acceptance contract.
These cards are compatible with split payment and allow to pay for a purchase using several cards (1 electronic meal voucher + 1 payment card) if the issuer returns a partial authorization code (10).
- Mixed cards
Mixed cards are cards that can be accepted both within the CONECS scheme (three-party scheme) and a card acceptance network (four-party scheme).
These cards are compatible with split payment:- if the issuer returns a partial authorization code (10);
- if the split payment is authorized within the card acceptance contract for the four-party mode.