Visa is always looking for ways to help our merchant and financial institution partners to better serve their customers and grow their respective businesses. Today, we announced two changes designed to do just that.
First, starting in October, we are raising the Visa Easy Payment Service “no signature required” transaction limit to $50 for discount stores and grocery stores.[1] That’s twice the current limit of $25 that will continue to apply to the majority of merchant categories. The higher transaction limit will help discount stores and grocery stores to be even more efficient, as well as speed up the checkout process by letting consumers use their cards without needing to sign or enter a PIN. And these merchants won’t be required to issue a receipt on these transactions unless the customer asks.
Why is this change important? Because approximately 80 percent of face-to-face Visa consumer transactions in the U.S.are under $50.[2]
As the $50 limit is introduced, Visa will review merchant, cardholder and card issuer feedback and may expand the higher transaction limit to additional merchant categories in the near future.
Secondly, we announced changes to the dispute resolution process, in order to reduce unnecessary chargebacks and documentation requirements and reduce merchant fraud management costs.
Specifically, starting in April 2013, merchants will be protected from fraud chargebacks on transactions that have been electronically read – that is swiped, dipped in or waved past a card reader. Visa will also eliminate the requirement for our card issuers to ask merchants for a copy of the receipt when a cardholder disputes a transaction.
These changes are designed to promote faster, more efficient dispute resolution for all participants in our payments system.
[1] Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) 5310 (Discount Stores) and 5411 (Grocery Stores & Supermarkets)
[2] Visa Inc. Data 2011
Posted by: Ted Carr, Visa Corporate Relations on May 7, 2012 at 10:03 am
