As the 2023 “Global Mobile Game Payment Report” suggests, 89% of compliant honor of kings top up services support credit card payments. Visa and Mastercard have the best coverage rate (97%), followed by American Express (Amex) only being supported by 43% of the services because of its high handling fee rate of 3.5%. Let us consider Codashop, which is one of the top Southeast Asian service providers, for instance. Its payment processing velocity for credit card is as high as 1,200 transactions per second, average time of arrival is squeezed to 18 seconds, error rate to as low as 0.12%, and the chance of data leakage is suppressed to less than 0.008% through PCI DSS certification. For instance, 6,480 points were topped up by a Brazilian player using a Visa card. The website automatically matched the optimal exchange rate (1 US dollar=5.2 reals), and a payment of 52 US dollars was made (official US price was 99.99 US dollars), saving 48%. Furthermore, HTTPS encryption reduced the possibility for man-in-the-middle attacks to 0.003%.
Regional exchange rate arbitrage and pricing strategies further maximize the expense of credit card payments. In 2023, with the sharp fall of the Turkish lira (1 US dollar ≈26.5 TRY), one specific platform took advantage of the discrepancy in the exchange rate and sold 6,680 points for 689 TRY (about 26 US dollars). When adding the “5% cashback” on cross-border consumption on credit cards, players actually paid 24.7 US dollars, the price per unit going as low as 0.0038 US dollars. Save 75% compared to the official price in the US market (0.015 US dollars per voucher). Sensor Tower data reveals that of honor of kings recharge orders completed with credit cards during Q3 2023, 68% were from emerging markets. Of those, Mexican players’ median single recharge size increased from $22 to $47, and repurchase increased by 41%.
Security-wise, credit card payments must be watchful for the danger from the black industry. In 2022, a “credit card fraud” case was exposed in the Philippines. Non-compliant platforms used fraudulent transactions to recharge players, leading to Tencent’s suspension of over 18,000 accounts and the loss of over 2.8 million US dollars by players. The compliance platform has increased the level of interception of fraudulent transactions to 99.6% through 3D Secure authentication and machine learning risk management models. For example, a specific service provider asks players to bind their mobile phone’s dynamic verification code (OTP). The $100 recharging success rate to return the money is 99.8%, and by acquiring ISO 27001 certification, the refunding rate is pushed below 0.5%, which is significantly lower than 23% black industry channels.
In terms of payment efficiency and superimposition of benefits, the combination approach of credit cards can maximize gains. American users refuel on the MyCard site with Chase Sapphire credit cards and integrate the actions of “10% return on First recharge” + “2x Cross-border Consumption Points.” When they pay $100, they can receive 11,000 points (the normal amount is 10,000 points) and redeem $20 travel points, raising the general rate of return by 30%. According to the “White Paper on Electronic Payment Technology” data, 87% of the platforms completed real-time exchange rate conversion (error rate ≤0.7%) and reduced the cost of currency conversion from the industry standard 2.8% to 0.9% through dynamic optimization for honor of kings top up orders paid by credit card in 2023.
In terms of regulatory flexibility, Tencent, in order to meet the requirements of the EU’s Payment Services Amendment Act (PSD2), has forced its cooperative platforms to implement SCA (Strong Customer Authentication), where additional verification (such as biometric or SMS verification) is required for credit card transactions, but the arrival efficiency remains within 25 seconds. For instance, a German player pays 5,000 points with PayG, and the platform triggers the EU Unified Payment Interface (UPI) to complete identity verification. The payment value is 45 euros (approximately 49 US dollars), with an additional 7% of exchange rate friction cost saved from non-SCA platforms, and the success rate of the transaction is increased from 94% to 99.5%.
In short, credit card payment has high penetration ratio (89%), low risk (fraud rate ≤0.008%) and cost savings capability (saves 75%) for honor of kings top up. Nevertheless, one should choose a platform that is compliant with PCI DSS, 3D Secure and exchange rate real-time. And through activity superpositions (e.g., cashback + points), the actual cost stays under 0.004 US dollars per point, with keeping the success rate of fund credits within 15 seconds ≥99%.