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In the rapidly evolving payment ecosystem, cardholders are increasingly looking for convenient and personalized payment experiences, while oftentimes managing financial accounts with various providers. Visa recognizes these challenges and is dedicated to improving the payment experience through innovative technology. To that effect, Visa launched Visa Flex Credential (VFC) in the U.S. region in April 2024. VFC is a new capability designed to streamline the payment process and enhance the overall user experience.

The initial rollout of VFC in the U.S. will involve a consumer debit primary (lead) credential that provides access to a consumer credit account as the secondary (funding) credential. VFC-enabled cards participating in this use case will display the “Debit/Flex” name on the physical and digital card art. Before an authorization, Acquirers and Merchants can also identify the VFC credentials electronically through ARDEF tables and Product Eligibility Inquiry messages (PEI).

More information can be found through the FAQ for Merchants

Visa is reminding all acquirers that their merchants should send authentication transactions on the highest protocol supported by the issuer. Acquirers whose merchants are not sending authentications on the highest protocol supported by the issuer account ranges are not adhering to the Visa Secure program requirements. If the highest protocol version is EMV 3DS 2.2.0, merchants must send EMV 3DS 2.2.0 authentications. The highest-protocol version supported by the issuer can be determined using the Preparation Request (PReq) / Preparation Response (PRes) message flow.

Additionally, Visa will discontinue support for EMV 3DS 2.1.0 on September 25, 2024. After this date, Visa Secure will no longer process EMV 3DS 2.1.0 transactions.

The Consumer Bill Payment Service program will be expanded effective 13 April 2024 to make Merchant Category Code (MCC) 8111—Legal Services and Attorneys eligible globally.

Visa is also reminding acquirers that Consumer Bill Payment Service (CBPS) providers that are misusing merchant category codes (MCCs), not properly submitting the CBPS indicator or submitting ineligible MCCs are not adhering to Visa Rules. Acquirers with third party bill payment providers utilizing the CBPS program without proper registration are also not adhering to Visa Rules.

CBPS is an optional service that can improve the bill payment experience for cardholders by allowing them to make card payments for bills via third party bill payment providers. CBPS is available to third party consumer bill payment providers that accept payments for various types of bills including rent, education, utilities and more.

For information regarding participation requirements and how to register for CBPS, contact your Visa representative.

The current EMV 3DS SDK encryption key certificate will expire on August 22, 2024. This will be a multi-step process starting March 1, 2024, and all EMV 3DS SDKs must update their encryption key certificate by August 21, 2024.

Merchants can start integration as soon as their SDK provider has updated their encryption key certificate. Merchants must work with their SDK provider to integrate the updates into their merchant app to avoid service disruption. Merchants must push the updated app to devices, publish a new version of the app and advise end consumers / device holders to update the merchant app on their device(s) before the expiration date.

To avoid service interruption, all Visa Secure 3DS endpoints must abide by the August 21, 2024 update timeline. Please reach out to your EMV 3DS SDK provider with any additional questions.

Effective 13 April 2024, Visa will re-classify three existing decline response codes, realign response code 14 and introduce a new response code.

• Three response codes are moving from Category 4—Generic Response Codes to Category 2—Issuer Cannot Approve At This Time. For both Category 4 and Category 2 response codes, 15 retries in 30 days are permitted so there is no merchant/acquirer authorization retry impact. The response codes moving are:
  • Response Code 39 (no credit account)
  • Response Code 52 (no checking account)
  • Response Code 53 (no savings account)
• In response to merchant and acquirer requests for clarification, Response Code 14 will be removed from Category 3 excess reattempts. It will still be treated as a Category 1—Issuer Will Never Approve decline code and will remain in the Data Quality Program. As a Category 1, merchants must not reattempt an authorization request after a decline.
• A new response code, Z5 (valid account but amount not supported) is being introduced as a Category 2 decline code.

The updates are intended to improve authorization processing, minimize invalid authorization reattempts, and optimize the consumer experience through greater transaction approvals.

Merchants should work with their acquirers and acquirer processors to ensure they receive the information needed to understand if authorization reattempts are prohibited, or if issues need to be corrected before an authorization reattempt is made

Effective 12 April 2024, Visa rolled out authorization and capture processing enhancements in Visa Platform Connect related to mandates announced in the April 2024 Global Technical Letter. Merchants must follow the instructions in the Visa Platform Connect: April 2024 Business Enhancement Release Mandates Awareness document on the Visa Platform Connect Announcements page (not available for agents) at Visa Online to identify the scope of the development needed to remain in compliance with the requirements of Visa and non-Visa networks.

Effective 13 April 2024, Visa will make changes to its authorization framework to modernize the existing structure for authorization validity and clearing time frames. The existing structures will be simplified and optimized by:

• Combining authorization validity and clearing and creating a new, single authorization-to-clearing time frame
• Creating a new set of standard time frames
• Introducing a new field in VisaNet that will populate an expected clearing date of an authorization. This date will be populated by VisaNet prior to sending it to the issuer, and will be returned to the acquirer in the authorization response.
• Outside the US, a merchant will be able to select a longer clearing period for card-not-present, cardholder-initiated transactions

To see the new maximum time frames for different transaction types, please refer to the article below. To support the changes to authorization and clearing time frames, Visa will align dispute rules and update Visa Resolve Online.

Read article: Authorization Framework Will Be Updated To Simplify Authorization Processing Time Frames: Information for U.S. Acquirers

Visa is delaying plans to restrict standing instruction merchant-initiated transactions (MITs) initiated by tokens to credential-on-file (COF) tokens only. Standing Instruction MITs initiated with Device Tokens provisioned after 30 July 2025 will be declined. Any standing instructions for MITs requested after this date must utilize Card on File tokens. Because COF tokens are delinked from the cardholder device, standing instruction MITs are not disrupted when consumers upgrade their device. However, standing instruction MITs that were initiated with Device Tokens provisioned on or before July 30, 2025 will continue to be honored. Merchants are advised to work with their payment providers or wallet providers to initiate the process toward supporting merchant COF tokens. Please note that Visa uses the device token provisioning date (and not the transaction date) to determine which transactions to restrict post the MIT device token sunset.

The latest dispute-related hot topics include dispute guidance, reminders, and announcements. Since rolling out CE3.0 in April 2023, several questions have been raised by merchants looking to utilize the remedy rule. A full list of FAQs and additional information about the remedy rule can be found here: CE3.0 Hot Topics – January 2024

The 2023 edition of Visa’s Global Travel Intentions Study is now available for clients to learn about international travelers’ needs and the pain points of payments while traveling. Visa’s proprietary report provides deep dives into emerging trends, segments, and habits for both outbound natives and inbound tourists, across 36 markets and aggregated by regions. Get a first look at travel as it’s evolving from the COVID pandemic, growing importance of sustainability, and Gen Z’s takeoff. For more than a decade, Visa has fielded its Global Travel Intentions Study every 2-3 years. It delivers an unparalleled view of the travel and payment landscape.

Clients that are interested in learning more about the study, obtaining a free copy of the infographics for their market(s) or purchasing the full report(s) should contact their Visa representative for more information.