Address Verification System (AVS)

The Address Verification System (AVS) is a feature designed to improve your overall card payments experience by:

• Reducing the likelihood of disputes, particularly from fraudulent payments.
• Increasing the likelihood that card payments are accepted by your customer’s bank.

Why it matters

Banks and credit card issuers assess risk with every card payment. The more customer information they receive, the better they can evaluate that risk.

When customers provide the billing address during a card payment:

• Banks can better verify the cardholder’s identity.
• If the address matches, the risk of fraud is reduced, and the payment is more likely to be accepted.
• If the address does not match, the risk of fraud increases, and the payment may be declined.

How AVS affects conversions

When AVS is used effectively, it can lead to an increase in card acceptance rates—and by extension, improved conversion rates. For example, FareHarbor customers using AVS have seen a 1% improvement in acceptance rates compared to those not using it.

However, the effect of AVS on conversion depends on your Dashboard configuration:

• If an online cart is enabled, AVS has no impact on conversions.
• If online cart is not enabled, AVS may result in a 2% decrease in conversions. (Note: We’re running additional tests to validate this further.)

Is AVS relevant for your business?

AVS is particularly helpful if:

• You have processed 2,000 or more card payments in the past 12 months.

• Your business has a high dispute rate.

  Note: FareHarbor defines a high dispute rate as greater than 0.9% over a 12-month period—that is, at least 9 out of every 1,000 card payments have been disputed.

  To calculate your dispute rate, divide the number of disputes in the past 12 months by the total number of card payments in that same period.

How to enable AVS

For digital wallets

Some digital wallets that are enabled on your Dashboard by default already include AVS:

• Apple Pay
• Google Pay
• Link by Stripe

However, in case wallets are disabled on your Dashboard and you want to enable them, please contact our Support team for assistance.

For card payments

To enable AVS for card payments, you need to enable it per item:

1. Navigate to the relevant item.
2. Go to Info & Policies.
3. Select the checkbox Require billing address when processing credit cards.

Once enabled, the billing address will be visible under the card form whenever a card payment is required. This includes:

• The online booking form.
• When adding card payments to new and existing bookings on a Dashboard.
• Payment links.

In case you need to disable AVS for specific items:

1. Navigate to the relevant item.
2. Go to Info & Policies.
3. Deselect the Enable AVS checkbox.

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Enabling and disabling AVS

To enable the Address Verification System (AVS) for clients:

1. Navigate to Settings > Advanced Company Settings > Payments.
2. Select the Enable AVS checkbox.
3. Save the changes.

To disable AVS for specific items:

1. Navigate to the relevant Item.
2. Go to Info and Policies.
3. Deselect the Enable AVS checkbox.