The payment landscape is constantly evolving, with new technologies and players emerging. This dynamic environment also presents increased risks, including fraud, disputes, and enumeration attacks. To ensure the smooth and secure operation of the global payments network, Visa has introduced the enhanced Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program* (VAMP).

Understanding the Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program

Effective April 1, 2025, the evolved VAMP consolidates five existing fraud and dispute programs into a single acquirer program, streamlining 38 distinct remediation processes into one. The program’s key objectives include:

  • Establishing globally aligned fraud thresholds for both domestic and cross-border card-not-present transactions, ensuring clarity and consistency for acquirers and their merchants.
  • Incorporating enumeration criteria based on the number of enumerated authorization transactions and enumeration rate, promoting best practices to defend against sophisticated fraudsters.
  • Transitioning from outlier management to a lifecycle risk management approach, leading to more comprehensive fraud prevention across the ecosystem.

Visa is also unifying its dispute monitoring programs by introducing new metrics. The Visa Dispute Monitoring Program (VDMP), Visa Fraud Monitoring Program (VFMP), and the previous version of VAMP are being integrated into the enhanced VAMP. The rollout will commence in the Visa Europe region and subsequently expand globally.

Key Updates to VAMP Criteria

Visa is updating compliance standards through VAMP, introducing a transaction count-based metric that accounts for both fraud-related and non-fraud-related disputes. This includes disputes arising from service issues, processing errors, and authorization chargebacks. The goal is to streamline the management of acceptable dispute ratios and it’ll impact on acquirers and merchants.

The new VAMP compliance criteria will affect merchants in several ways:

  • Implementation of a new metric that combines chargeback and fraud ratios.
  • Adjustments to how prevention tools contribute to these ratios.
  • Increased likelihood of acquirers imposing stricter thresholds.

The updated VAMP criteria include:

  • Eligible Transactions: Only card-absent domestic and cross-border VisaNet transactions will be considered.
  • Dispute Volume Threshold: A monthly minimum of 1,000 combined fraud and non-fraud disputes will apply to acquirer and merchant thresholds.
  • Threshold Calculations: Non-fraud Dispute Condition Codes 11, 12, and 13 will be included.
  • Exclusions: Rapid Dispute Resolution (RDR) disputes and Cardholder Dispute Network (CDRN) disputes will be excluded.
  • Compelling Evidence 3.0: Confirmed Compelling Evidence 3.0 disputes will be excluded, except for fraud-related disputes.

Preparing for the Changes

Acquirers are accountable for the overall performance of their portfolios, meaning that any merchant with a VAMP ratio exceeding acceptable levels could put the acquirer’s compliance at risk. To mitigate this, some acquirers may impose fines on merchants whose VAMP ratios exceed their stricter thresholds or, in extreme cases, terminate merchant accounts.

Merchants need to remain vigilant and adapt their fraud prevention and dispute management strategies to align with these changes. Even if merchants remain within Visa’s 0.9% threshold, they could still face consequences for exceeding the more stringent limits set by their acquirers.

To highlight the importance of robust fraud prevention measures, a recent study by CyberSource reveals that global merchants continue to face significant challenges in managing eCommerce fraud. The 2024 Global eCommerce Payments & Fraud Report emphasizes the need for enhanced fraud management practices to combat the evolving threats in the payment landscape.

Overall, VAMP fosters a more streamlined, risk-oriented approach, helping industry players enhance their compliance processes and adapt to the evolving payment ecosystem.

If you would like to learn more about fraud prevention, please do not hesitate to contact our experts, who will be happy to assist: https://www.payxpert.com/contact/