Visa

Updates to Fraud and Consumer Dispute Rules and New Pre-Arbitration Attempt Requirements

BEHAVIORAL CHANGE | VISA | GLOBAL

Effective Date: October 19, 2024

Merchant Impact

To promote more efficient dispute resolution for clients, Visa is eliminating rule language that is outdated or no longer required, standardizing rules to make them easier to interpret, and making modifications to increase flexibility.

Effective 19 October 2024, Visa has updated dispute rule language and made additional revisions to dispute rules for clarity and consistency. Additionally, based on client feedback, Visa has created pre-arbitration attempt requirements.

More information will be shared about updated rule language and pre-arbitration attempt requirements in the coming months. For latest updates and guidance for handling disputes, see our Support Articles.

Arbitration Case Review Fees Will Be Revised in AP, Canada, CEMEA and LAC.

FEE CHANGE | VISA | Australia, New Zealand, Asia Pacific, Canada, Europe, Latin America

Effective Date: October 1, 2024

Merchant Impact

Effective 1 October 2024, Visa will raise the rates for arbitration case filing reviews. The following fees will be assessed on any filed arbitrations, regardless of outcome:

To avoid these fees, we recommend accepting pre-arbitration cases for transactions where the order value is less than the network fee.

VAMP Enhancements and Retirement of VDMP and VFMP

BEHAVIORAL CHANGE | VISA | Global

Effective Date: March 31, 2025

Merchant Impact

Effective 31 March 2025, Visa will retire the Visa Dispute Monitoring Program (VDMP) and the Visa Fraud Monitoring Program (VFMP) in Europe.

Starting 1 April 2025, VDMP and VFMP programs will be consolidated into the enhanced Visa Acquiring Monitoring Program (VAMP). The new VAMP will introduce updated criteria for identification thresholds.

VAMP Criteria Changes

• VAMP ratio thresholds will be calculated by the Total Disputes (Reported Fraud + Non-Fraud Disputes) divided by Total Settled Transactions.
• VAMP Enumeration (or card testing) Ratio will be calculated by the number of confirmed enumerated transactions divided by the number of settled transactions.

First time offenders will get a three-month grace period within a 12-month rolling period. All data is calculated by Central Processing Date (CPD), which is the date Visa received the transaction.

Along with the above changes, VAMP introduces a new fee of $5 per dispute.

Additional Information

There will be a transition period from 1 April 2025 – 31 December 2025 where the VAMP ratio for merchants must not exceed 1.5% monthly. VAMP enumeration must not exceed 20%. Starting 1 January 2026, VAMP ratio may not exceed 0.9%, VAMP enumeration remains 20%. Additionally, the combined number of fraud transactions and non-fraud chargebacks must not exceed 1,000 per month.

AVS Fees Will Be Revised

FEE CHANGE | VISA | Asia Pacific, Australia, New Zealand

Effective Date: October 1, 2024

Merchant Impact

Effective 1 October 2024, Visa will increase fees for Address Verification System (AVS) in the Asia Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand regions.

See our Support Articles for more information about using AVS and CVV Rules with PayPal Braintree.

Cyber Threat Protection Will Be Introduced in April 2025 as Risk Capabilities Are Further Enhanced.

FEE CHANGE | VISA | Europe

Effective Date: April 1, 2025

Merchant Impact

Effective 1 April 2025, Visa will introduce a fee of USD 0.005 for European acquirers, charged per authorization. This fee will fund cyber threat protection to improve protection against large-scale fraud attacks.

Secure Credential Framework in AU.

FEE CHANGE | VISA | Australia

Effective Date: October 1, 2024

Merchant Impact

Effective 1 October 2024, Visa will introduce the Secure Credential Integrity Fee in Australia as an expansion of Visa Secure Credential Framework (SCF). A Secure Credential Integrity Fee of 5 bps will be assessed on certain domestic non-tokenized Card Not Present (CNP) transactions.

What is Visa Secure Credential Framework?

Visa Secure Credential Framework (SCF) is a package of measures to improve support for Visa EMV Payment Tokens in the card-not-present (CNP) environment and encourage adoption and usage of Visa EMV Payment Tokens by merchants for ecommerce transactions. This was previously rolled out across many European countries, and Visa is now expanding parts of the program to Australia.

Visa has introduced the Secure Credential Framework to help bring the digital ecosystem for card-not-present (CNP) transactions in line with face-to-face chip transactions to help reduce fraud and improve approval rates.

What is the Authorization Response Code Update?

Merchant Impact

Effective Date: April 2024,

Visa will reclassify three existing decline response codes, realign one response code, and introduce one new response code:

• Response codes 39 (No credit account), 52 (No checking account), and 53 (No savings account) will be reclassified as Category 2 (Issuer Cannot Approve at This Time) from Category 4 (Generic Response Codes)
• Response code 14 (Invalid account number [no such number]) will now be treated as solely Category 1 (Issuer Will Never Approve) instead of being defined as both Category 1 and Category 3 (Data Quality Decline)
• Response code Z5 (Valid account number but amount not supported) is a new Visa Category 2 response code

Merchants should review their use cases for response code 14, as it is now a Category 1 decline. Transaction retries are not allowed on Category 1 declines, and merchants are advised to stop retries for Decline Code 14.

What is the Digital Commerce Fee in APAC?

FEE CHANGE | VISA | Australia, Hong Kong, Macau, and the South Pacific.

Effective Date: 1 July 2024

Merchant Impact

From 1 July 2024, Visa is introducing the Digital Commerce Fee of 0.75 basis points (0.0075%) with a new bundle in select markets in the Asia-Pacific region. The new fee will apply to all domestic and cross-border card-not-present (CNP) transactions.

Additionally, Visa will no longer individually bill for the following services:

• Visa Account Updater (VAU)
• Visa Digital Credential Updater (VDCU)
• Visa Credential Enrichment Services (VCES)
• Visa Secure (3D Secure)
• Digital Authentication Framework (DAF)
• Card Verification Value 2 (CVV2) Submission and Verification

Merchants are advised to use the services included in the bundle to maximize the value for the new fee.

What is the Introduction to Small Merchant Interchange Program Mandate?

FEE CHANGE | VISA | CA

Effective Date: 1 October 2024

Merchant Impact

Effective 1 October 2024, Visa will introduce domestic interchange programs for small merchants in Canada to support revisions to its voluntary interchange undertaking with the Canadian government. Merchants who process less than CAD $300k annually with Visa will qualify and will be eligible to receive the reduced interchange rates (see table below).