The "Merchant Data Standards Manual" is a document prepared by Visa for member institutions (acquirers and other payment ecosystem players). It contains the classification, identification and data standard requirements for merchant, payment facilitator and marketplace structures.
The prominent topics in this guide are as follows:
- Criteria for determining the merchant name — the aim is for the merchant description on the cardholder statement to be accurate and understandable.
- Determining the merchant location — appropriate location information must be entered for fixed or sparsely located points of sale.
- Merchant Category Codes (MCC) and related data formats — covers assigning the correct MCC for the line of business, the conditions when more than one code needs to be used, requests for new MCCs, and so on.
- It should be noted that this document is a complement to Visa's "Core Rules" and "Product and Service Rules" documents, and that in case of any conflict between them, those main rules take precedence.
Why Is It Important?
- When merchant data is accurate and consistent, cardholder recognition, chargeback and copy request processes in card payment transactions work more smoothly.
- Especially as a company within the payment systems infrastructure, mastering such standards provides an advantage in terms of both operational compliance and regulatory/bank relationships.
- For a payment systems startup with global ambitions, the standardization of such global brand data (MCC, merchant location, descriptor data) can be a significant competitive advantage.
In Summary
This document offers a clear guide on how merchants should be identified in the payment network, which data should be entered and which codings should be used.
It would be appropriate for companies developing payment systems infrastructure to evaluate this document in the context of application architecture, risk compliance, data governance and banking/regulatory relationships.
The document can be accessed via the link below:
Visa – Merchant Data Standards Manual (PDF)
